Consilience

Yesterday, a great project was publicly announced: Autonomo.us

Autonomous provides a framework to think about the world of Software As A Service. From the “Franklin Street Statement:”

We consider network services that are Free Software and which share Free Data as a good starting-point for ensuring users’ freedom. Although we have not yet formally defined what might constitute a ‘Free Service’, we do have suggestions that developers, service providers, and users should consider (ed: see statement for those suggestions).

Yes, it is a brain-child of some FSF people, so they of course support the AGPL. I have no problem with that because well, I support the AGPL.

Basically, it boils down to the word that I love; Freedom. My love for that word permeates to all of the projects on which I work: Open Source/Free Software, Creative Commons, Open Educational Resources, and Open Access Journals.

This statement outlines ideas which should be applied to Network Services such as online email service, microblogging services, wiki services, etc. Basically, you own your data and have access to the code which manipulates your data. So, Twitter is a Closed System; you own neither your data nor have access to the source. However, Identi.ca is an Open System; you own you data and you have access to the source[0].

This idea has been around for a long time. I know people who have not used any closed source online services (to the furthest extent they could). Many of us in the Open Source world, however, have areas which we could improve (how many developers do you know who have gmail accounts?).

This Franklin Street Statement allows us to have something we can reference as we improve our use of these services.

[0] You should follow me on identi.ca - http://identi.ca/greg