“It’s stupidity. It’s worse than stupidity: it’s a marketing hype campaign.”

“One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control,” he said. “It’s just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else’s web server, you’re defenceless. You’re putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.”

Here’s an admittedly overstretched metaphor: I live in a house where I control everything* — the temperature, where the furniture is placed, how much and what kind of food is in the cupboards. I can go in any room in the house whenever I want, and I can change whatever I want. Great.

I wouldn’t want to spend any time in jail. In jail, I have very, very limited freedom, and there are hostile fellow inmates and in some jails interrogations and beatings. It is a really bad place to spend any amount of time.

But I do like to go visit my friends’ and family members’ houses. I don’t have absolute freedom to do whatever I want at their house, but I get to spend time with people I like, enjoy their hospitality, and also see the way other people live for a little while. By having an informal custom of hospitality interchange, I and my friends and social network get to enjoy more of the world than we would just in our own houses.

If friends’ houses were more like jail, I wouldn’t want to go. If a friend told me that I couldn’t talk about politics in her house (say), or another required everyone who visited to be strip-searched at the door, I’d of course not visit (and hopefully would be allowed to leave). But I usually can expect a certain level of autonomy in my person and in my effects that is acceptable and comfortable.

Going places I don’t individually control — restaurants, museums, retail stores, public parks — enriches my life immeasurably. A definition of “freedom” where I couldn’t leave my own house because it was the only space I had absolute control over would not feel very free to me at all. At the same time, I think there are some places I just don’t want to go — my freedom and physical well-being wouldn’t be protected or respected there.

Similarly, I think that using network services makes my computing life fuller and more satisfying. I can do more things and be a more effective person by spring-boarding off the software on other peoples’ computers than just with my own. I may not control your email server, but I enjoy sending you email, and I think it makes both of our lives better.

And I think that just as we can define a level of personal autonomy that we expect in places that belong to other people or groups, we should be able to define a level of autonomy that we can expect when using software on other people’s computers. Can we make working on network services more like visiting a friends’ house than like being locked in a jail?

We’ve made a balance between the absolute don’t-use-other-people’s-computers argument and the maybe-it’s-OK-sometimes argument in the Franklin Street Statement. Time will tell whether we can craft a culture around Free Network Services that is respectful of users’ autonomy, such that we can use other computers with some measure of confidence.

• For hypothetical purposes. My wife and daughter would probably dispute this claim.

Some choice quotes:

What good are free and open source licenses, all based on the act of software distribution, when software is no longer distributed but merely performed on the global network stage?

… companies are beginning to understand that in the era of the cloud, open source without open data is only half the application.

if you care about open source for the cloud, build on services that are designed to be federated rather than centralized.

Free Software + Free Data + Open Protocols ➔ Autonomy

It was brave of Tim to take this stand. Few people in the Web 2.0 biz are going to be excited about this direction for software services. Nobody wants to be told to open up, or get routed around by the FLOSS community. A lot of software companies have responded to the growth of Open Source software by moving to a software-as-a-service model, and they’re not going to like hearing that they’re going to be facing competition on that level, too.

To be fair, Tim takes a perspective that’s been different from ours here at autonomo.us. He argues mostly in economic terms: that “lock in” is bad for companies and limits choices. Which is true, but doesn’t really focus on freedom of choice for the individual. That said, I think it’s probably a good argument in general, and I think that a lot of companies that have based their business on a single “open” SaaS platform (cough cough) know that this kind of lock-in is a really bad thing.

Mostly, I’m glad we’re seeing a diversity of people in the Free and Open Source software community expressing their concerns on this matter. I know it might be asking a lot, but I hope that Tim gives the Franklin Street Statement a once-over and considers endorsing it.