sovereign

h1. Introduction

Sovereign is a set of "Ansible":http://ansibleworks.com playbooks that you can use to build and maintain your own "personal cloud":http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=clown%20computing (I know I know). It's based entirely on open source software, so you're in control.

If you've never used Ansible before, you a) are in for a treat and b) might find these playbooks useful to learn from, since they show off a fair bit of what the tool can do.

h2. Background and Motivations

I had been a paying Google Apps customer for personal and corporate use since the service was in beta. Until several weeks ago, that is. I was about to set up another Google Apps account for a new project when I stopped to consider what I would be funding with my USD $50 per user per year:

# "A seriously questionable privacy track record":https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#Privacy.
# "A dwindling commitment to open standards":https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/google-abandons-open-standards-in