This project seeks to build a suite of provisioning tooling to allow for automated deployment and management of OSS groupware tools, secure communication, circumvention and other offerings from the Internet Freedom community.
OpenAppStack will offer self-managed click-and-play auto-updated provisioning of necessary software for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). A user will be able to log in using multi-factor authentication (MFA) and Single Sign On (SSO) to all of these tools using a (self-)hosted instance of the OpenAppStack, running at a cloud provider like AWS, Eclips.is or Greenhost, an alternative infrastructure provider or even on their own hardware.
OpenAppStack will initially package the most popular services used by CSOs: file sharing and shared calendars, internal communications, video conferencing, and a single sign-on and sign-off solution for this services. For tool developers OpenAppStack will provide CI/CD and (functional) testing hooks as well as APIs to integrate the setup process into the user interface, allowing additional applications to become supported and included.
OpenAppStack is built around a “single-tenant” cloud model, which means that every organization will have its own OpenAppStack system setup, running on one or more cloud instances (using low-level virtualization). The individual applications within the stack are containerized. This model optimizes between the cost efficiency of containerization and the security benefits of full virtualization (between tenants).
OpenAppStack will also build a secure and user-friendly platform for Civil Society Organizations and individual organizations to deploy and manage a suite of secure communications, collaborations, and circumvention tools developed by the Internet Freedom community.