I have 10mbps upstream connection. I have a Raspberry pi and a Linux-powered NAS. I have lots of equipment which costs me nothing to use, which I can use to host or create new internet services. And I do.
No, it wont let me run a multi-million user site, but that's not my aim, nor should it be needed to let people new at the game fool around.
Putting the bar higher and higher to just being able to fool around is so utterly the wrong way to go.
I wonder if anyone on this site remembers what is was like to be 8 years old and already being able to program your first program on your TRS-80 or Commodore 64.
No money needing to be spent, no need to seek permission. Just hack. Get immediate, direct feedback. Instantly gratifying. That appraoch gave us a generation of computer-professionals unlike any other. Why are we so eager to put the road-blocks on now?
> I have 10mbps upstream connection. I have a Raspberry pi and a Linux-powered NAS.
that means you pay for your internet connection and for the hardware you run the website on. Why is also paying for a certificate a problem?
I get the hobbyists approach, but especially for hobbyists I think it's better to stay with HTTP/1.1 which, as a plain text protocol is a lot easier to learn than the complicated ugly mess of HTTP/2.0. Also because of the SSL requirement, development will probably never happen over HTTP/2.0 - or do you want to create or even purchase new certificates for all your development projects?
A HTTP/1.1 server is something normal people can implement.
A HTTP/2.0 server is something for others to implement and a pain to debug.
I see HTTP/2.0 as a new transport protocol to transmit what we know as HTTP/1.1. None of the request/response semantics has changed between 1.1 and 2.0 (minus server push, but if you want to support older clients, you'd have to use other techniques anyways).
If you're just running your own little page, nothing is stopping you from using HTTP/1.1. Once your site is big enough to actually benefit significantly from HTTP/2.0, you will have the money for a certificate.
It's the latency for your clients you can shrink with 2.0, but you'd get bigger benefits from moving off hosting on a cable modem than by moving to 2.0. At that point, you'll have other, bigger costs to pay than the certificate.
> that means you pay for your internet connection and for the hardware you run the website on. Why is also paying for a certificate a problem?
Because the internet access and the hardware would have been bought regardless of the activity, for other purposes. (S)he was already paying for it, and used it for other purposes. Running a web site _happens_ to be one of its use, but is not the one goal. The fact that it is free to run a web site means that I can run my website on my laptop.
On the other hand, the certificate would have to be bought _only_ for this, because it is its only use: be able to play the HTTP/2.0 game.
TCP stacks long ago became something for other people to implement and hard to debug. Same with most encryption. There will always be a hobbiest path with http/1 but the biggest sites in the world are building http/2 for their use cases.
The internet is no longer predominantly a hobbiests' playground and hasn't been in some time. Mainstream success leads to this sort of transformation by definition.
Get immediate, direct feedback. Instantly gratifying. That appraoch gave us a generation of computer-professionals unlike any other.
Are you kidding? Just a few decades ago you would need to pay a lot for machine time to be able to use computer. Today you can sit near a cafe with a $200 netbook and have a free internet access. In the 90's a .com domain cost ~$100. Just a few years ago TLS certificate cost close to the hundred, today you can buy one at around $10 per year or sometimes get it for free.
You have 10mbps connection! At your home! How much do you pay for it?
It's only a barrier to entry if you insist on using http 2.0 which is a CHOICE you make. Don't use http 2.0, just like you can choose to use your internet connection for whatever.
So now it's NO choice after all. If you want to run a "real" site, not only must you pay rent for your DNS, you are now also being extorted into paying money to CAs. CAs which can be subverted by the NSA, so they're effectively worthless anyway.
That's a bad move. Internet should be getting cheaper, not more expensive.
This whole HTTP 2.0 affair is turning into a real piece of extremely short-sighted shenanigans. Given W3C's green-light on DRM in HTML, we should start questioning if we want to entrust them with these sort of tasks in the future. They have gone completely off the rails.
>You have 10mbps connection! At your home! How much do you pay for it?
I hope you understand it's mbit. If so, I've got 50mbps over here and I pay €50 (that's about $67 USD) per month, which includes 50 TV channels and interactive TV (I'm Dutch, I hope I described it correctly)
The situation (s)he describes is fairly common; I've got a Raspberry Pi and an old laptop running as servers over here, on which I do experiments and host small websites. They've got StartSSL certs, which suck, but they do their job at least. If you put enough effort in the process and not just blindly fill in the forms, you'll get there.
People who are really interested in programming will find a way, they always have.
Did you think typing source code from a magazine (which they didn't carry in your home town because nobody else was interested) wasn't a roadblock or barrier?
Waiting to have access to the family TV so you could plug in your microcomputer? Or saving up to buy a second-hand 12" TV set so you could use it in the bedroom? Paying $1500 (in inflation adjusted dollars) for a Commodore 64 was a pretty big barrier.
If none of those were barriers for you, then I'm sure your parents would have sprung the cash for an SSL certificate.
No, it wont let me run a multi-million user site, but that's not my aim, nor should it be needed to let people new at the game fool around.
Putting the bar higher and higher to just being able to fool around is so utterly the wrong way to go.
I wonder if anyone on this site remembers what is was like to be 8 years old and already being able to program your first program on your TRS-80 or Commodore 64.
No money needing to be spent, no need to seek permission. Just hack. Get immediate, direct feedback. Instantly gratifying. That appraoch gave us a generation of computer-professionals unlike any other. Why are we so eager to put the road-blocks on now?