FAASCAPE

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Customer area 134 registered developers

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FAQs

Summary

Faascape derives from FAAS. What does it mean? What difference is there with SAAS ?
FAAS means "Feature As A Service" and belongs to the large family of SAAS ("Software As A Service") and PAAS ("Platform As A Service"). Rather than providing large business or specialized application software, FAAS has the specificity of providing small, simple modules, called features, such as web services. These features will then be mashed up to form a complete application. Example: e-commerce shopping cart, catalog, user account management, booking management, blog, forum, … or any other service that may occur to you.

You are the Appstore of web services...
We have often been told so. Of course, there are similarities, such as the fact for the customer to remotely use small features. But in the Appstore, features are downloaded once and for all. With us, all features continue to be hosted on the platform. A feature can be used by several customers at the same time and may be improved and updated. The customer pays per use.

In what way does Faascape use "cloud computing" ?
Since Faascape has its hosted services paid per use, we need to have the same approach to its infrastructure and to only pay for the servers which have actually been used at a given time. For instance, an application hosted on a dedicated server generates an identical invoice whatever the server load. With Faascape and "cloud-computing", you only pay for the hosting you use. Thus, an application which is not used at night generates no cost for night hours.

Who can develop on Faascape ?
Almost anybody. You just need to register. Our tool is accessible to beginners, students, non-professional computer users, etc. Our offer is especially advantageous for people with the "auto-entrepreneur" status. Service companies may however also have employees develop on the platform and use Faascape as a new distribution channel for their software. It is possible to develop directly on line or via one's usual working environment.

Who does the developed service belong to ?
The author of the service (private person or company) holds the copyright for it. Services developed through the Faascape platform are released under an Apache V2 license.

You pay free software developers. Isn't this a contradiction ?
In "free software", "free" should be understood as in "freedom of speech" and not as in "free beer". There is no paying for the right of use (free license). We only invoice the use of the hosted, ready-to-use feature. Part of this income (one third) is paid to the developer, thus creating a genuine economy based on Free Software, without altering its spirit of collaboration.

How does the invoicing and payment system work on the platform ?
Customers are invoiced for what they have used. As long as a service is not operating, that is,as long as it is not being used, the customer pays nothing. Each use or call to the service is accounted for. The total of all service uses is calculated at the end of each month to generate an invoice. This invoice also features invoiced elements other than the use of services (data storage, support, etc). One third of the income corresponding to the use of services is paid back to the author. The other two thirds are used to cover infrastructure, marketing and advertizing costs.

Could Web surfers download your applications to use them freely on their site ?
This is possible, since the features are under a free license. However, this would be more expensive for the customer. He would loose the hosting per use and would have to integrate this functionality in his environment, while monitoring updates and security. On our platform, all costs are shared.

Why do you only pay back one third of the income generated by web services to developers ?
Paying for Free Software development, which we are going to do, used not to be done up to now since the distribution of free software generates no direct income. We take care of the hosting, cloud management, marketing and selling of the service, all of which also has to be paid for.

Why do you limit yourself to the Java language ?
To begin with, we have kept to the Java language. However, we are ready to open up to other languages, if developers or customers require it. The considered language must nevertheless be executable within a JVM. We have already started discussing the use of Groovy, Python and PHP.
This is only about developing new services for the platform. On the client side you can use pretty much anything supporting the protocols we currently propose : hessian, dwr, rest. That means java based environment, php, flex / flash, javascript, python, ruby ...
For the time being, we have only validated the following environments for production use : java and derivatives, php, javascript.

Who is responsible towards customers for the quality of the services and their possible dysfunctions ?
The platform operator, that is, us, and not the author of the service. The technical managers of the platform validate services before they are released, that is, before they appear on the customer catalog. From then on, the platform is responsible for the operation of the services and provides a technical assistance to users, if necessary.

In what way are you Web 2.0 ?
"Web 2.0" means that users and Web surfers create the content jointly, as a community. With Faascape, developers create the provided products; customers, partners, and intermediaries express their demand through forums or instant messaging. The platform is a market place and an area of intermediation. Connections and exchanges between developers and users / customers are essential.

What makes you different from existing Web development platforms ?
Faascape is a part of several trends currently expanding or being created on the Internet: free Software, SAAS, "web development" (the web being considered as a remote development area), "mash-up"... but up to now, no platform offers such a synergy, with developers being paid on top of it!