Proposals

The Franklin Street Statement and the future of Free Network Services

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Proposal
Culture
Short form
osb2009-0017
Session notes

Excerpt

Web services and cloud computing are moving users from Open Source desktop applications to proprietary remote computing. How can we set standards to make Web services as liberating to use as Open Source software?

Description

Cloud computing is moving more and more of users’ computing experience from desktop and laptop systems they control to remote servers “in the cloud”. For the most part, these remote services run proprietary software and “lock in” users, refusing to share data or even let users take their own data with them.

The Franklin Street Statement, put together by a loose group of hackers and activists from the FSF, Creative Commons, Open Knowledge Foundation, Software Freedom Law Center and elsewhere, sets parameters for how future Free Network Services could work. How can we make the Web service experience as free and open as using Open Source software on a computer you control yourself?

This talk will outline the problem, talk about solutions, and look forward to building an interconnecting stack of Free Network Services that replicate or replace today’s proprietary Web sites.

Tags

Franklin Street Statement, Free Network Services, Open Software Service Definition, ossd

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Speaker

  • Evan_stationc_192

    Evan Prodromou

    Control Yourself, Inc.

    Biography

    Evan Prodromou is a developer and entrepreneur based in Montreal. Best known for starting Wikitravel, the collaborative Open Content travel guide, he has worked on Open Source software and the Web for 13 years. His most recent project, Identi.ca, is a microblogging site with 60,000 registered users. Prodromou is founder and CEO of Control Yourself, Inc., which manages Identi.ca and provides service and support for the Laconica microblogging software.

    Sessions

    • * Open Source Microblogging with Laconica
      • Title: Open Source Microblogging with Laconica
      • Track: Chemistry
      • Room: Fremont
      • Time: 10:00 – 10:45am
      • Excerpt:

        Microblogging lets people share short status messages with their social network. Public Web sites like Twitter, Jaiku and Plurk are wildly popular with consumers, but Open Source programs allow a distributed social graph and implementation inside the enterprise firewall. Evan Prodromou, founder of Identi.ca, will describe the Open Source microblogging tool Laconica and its uses in the workplace and on the Public Web.

      • Speakers: Evan Prodromou