I was really happy to see a blog post on Open Source and Cloud Computing by Tim O’Reilly in O’Reilly Radar today. Not just because he gave a nod to my new microblogging project, Identi.ca, although that was pretty sweet. Tim argues strongly for the use of distributed, federated web services implementing open standards.
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In interviews, in private discussion, and in some media articles about autonomo.us, people have suggested that we’re redundant to other groups like DiSo or DataPortability, who are discussing standards and writing code. To quote webmonkey:
Rather than spending their time on grandiose statements, the DiSo Project and others like are already distributing code that just works. … [T]he web moves much faster than desktop software and it remains to be seen if the principles of desktop software can guide the development of an open web.
bkuhn (aka Bradley M. Kuhn) is a member of the autonomo.us group, and is best known for his work in various FLOSS non-profits. He is the inventor of the Affero clause of the AGPL, and currently works at the Software Freedom Law Center and as president of the Software Freedom Conservancy.
Jesse Vincent gave a talk at OSCON today entitled Prophet, your path out of the cloud. Every hacker who is interested in implementing a network service that respects the freedom of its users should look at Jesse’s work.
I’ve noticed some complaints that the Franklin Street Statement does not address privacy issues. I thought it might be worth explaining here why I am less concerned. As usual, I speak for myself here, rather than the group, but we all welcome constructive feedback on the issue.
Free and open software has a slightly indirect mechanism for dealing with software of low quality. It gives people the freedom to fix the problems themselves, pay for someone else to fix it, or to get their data out and use other software. In other words, freedom creates choices and markets- which allow and encourage quality to happen. Given that free software originates in one man’s quest to improve the quality of his printer, this side effect of freedom shouldn’t be too surprising.
Aaron Swartz is a member of the autonomo.us group and a Web activist, best known for his work on the Semantic Web and social news site Reddit. Among other projects he is currently working on the Open Library and watchdog.net. The following is an essay solicited for publication by a defense industry journal and posted here as background info on the problems of freedom and network services. [—Ed.]
Evan Prodromou is one of the bloggers on autonomo.us. As with most blog posts on the site, the following is his personal viewpoint.
One of the suggestions of the Franklin Street Declaration is for programmers to “[d]evelop software that can replace centralized services.” I’ve taken that suggestion to heart in creating the Laconica microblogging platform, which powers my site Identi.ca. I was using microblogging services a lot, and I wanted to have one that would preserve my autonomy; so I created my own.
I’d like to put forward some suggestions for other Web applications that are ripe for an Open Software Service implementation. These are Web applications that I use on a regular basis. I’d prefer to instead use services that respect my autonomy, and I’m looking forward to a point where I can live my life on-line that way. Here are some services that I use on-line regularly, and that I’d love to have Open alternatives for.
The current generation of network services or Software as a Service can provide advantages over traditional, locally installed software in ease of deployment, collaboration, and data aggregation. Many users have begun to rely on such services in preference to software provisioned by themselves or their organizations. This move toward centralization has powerful effects on software freedom and user autonomy.
On March 16, 2008, a workgroup convened at the Free Software Foundation to discuss issues of freedom for users given the rise of network services. We considered a number of issues, among them what impacts these services have on user freedom, and how implementers of network services can help or harm users. We believe this will be an ongoing conversation, potentially spanning many years. Our hope is that free software and open source communities will embrace and adopt these values when thinking about user freedom and network services. We hope to work with organizations including the FSF to provide moral and technical leadership on this issue.
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