Fwd: Franklin Street Statement and Free Network Services

[Dave Crossland]

Evan has been doing a lot of work that I hoped someone would do around
networked free software, and the way identi.ca peers is similar to the
way I've suggested GNU Herds could peer.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Evan Prodromou <address@hidden>
Date: 2008/8/30
Subject: Franklin Street Statement and Free Network Services
To: address@hidden


Hi, all. I'm interested in getting some feedback from the list on the
Franklin Street Statement:

http://autonomo.us/2008/07/franklin-street-statement/

...and on the Open Software Service Definition:

http://www.opendefinition.org/ossd

I'm currently working on an Open Software Service called Identi.ca:

http://identi.ca/

It's a microblogging site (think Twitter) built on Open Source
software and Open Data. To add to the fun, we use a distributed social
networking model, with a fun little open protocol called
OpenMicroBlogging.

Things are going a leetle beet crazy with Open Source and Web services
lately. An Open Source, Open Data site is the 8th biggest (or is it
7th now?) on Alexa. Reddit went FLOSS a while ago, and Ma.gnolia.com
just announced their M2 project.

Second players in network-effects markets can change the game with
Open Source. In a closed world, it's silo vs. silo, and the biggest
silo wins. But in an open world, it's protocol vs. silo, or Internet
vs. silo, and no silo is as big as the Internet. It's not a guaranteed
win, but in a network-effect market, it's about the best chance you've
got if you're not in first place.

Thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions?

-Evan

--
Evan Prodromou <address@hidden>


-- 
Regards,
Dave

"Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers
and deluge the hobby market with good software."
- Bill Gates, 1976, in want of www.gnuherds.org