No, Your Service isn't "Open"(buddycloud.com)
buddycloud.com
No, Your Service isn't "Open"
http://buddycloud.com/cms/content/no-your-service-isnt-open
5 comments
Not really. RMS has harshly rejected terms like "open source" for free software.
"Openness" is a relative and meaninglessly vague term in this context. Anything short of a open-sourced program and completely public data is less "open" than some alternative. The complaints that 99.99% of people make about APIs have less to do with "openness" than poor communication by the provider in the forms of bad documentation and unwarned changes.
TFA: "Facebook Connect is not open. It's controlled by one company."
Yes, because if it was another company, you wouldn't care about this API. The API only matters to anyone because it's Facebook.
I adore free software, but "openness" is a lousy justification for trying to work up umbrage about the difficulties of working in a parasitic developer ecosystem.
"Openness" is a relative and meaninglessly vague term in this context. Anything short of a open-sourced program and completely public data is less "open" than some alternative. The complaints that 99.99% of people make about APIs have less to do with "openness" than poor communication by the provider in the forms of bad documentation and unwarned changes.
TFA: "Facebook Connect is not open. It's controlled by one company."
Yes, because if it was another company, you wouldn't care about this API. The API only matters to anyone because it's Facebook.
I adore free software, but "openness" is a lousy justification for trying to work up umbrage about the difficulties of working in a parasitic developer ecosystem.
There are plenty of words in this particular universe that are thrown around a lot. You mention "openness". Another big one is "freedom". You can discuss to great length what these words mean, but I'm not going down that route tonight.
I don't know specifically what RMS has said and has not said. For the most of it I'm not interested. What I am interested in are the actions. Like him or not, but RMS has clearly done good things for anyone who believes computers should be devices that you and I are free to hack on on your own.
(I'm carefully avoiding your TFA quote because I have nothing useful to comment on that. Yes, I agree that the API only has value because it's coming from this one company. I don't really think this has much to do with openness).
I don't know specifically what RMS has said and has not said. For the most of it I'm not interested. What I am interested in are the actions. Like him or not, but RMS has clearly done good things for anyone who believes computers should be devices that you and I are free to hack on on your own.
(I'm carefully avoiding your TFA quote because I have nothing useful to comment on that. Yes, I agree that the API only has value because it's coming from this one company. I don't really think this has much to do with openness).
I'm not really concerned about RMS. I just pointed out that he isn't about "open".
To the extent that you're fond of free software and RMS, that's nice, but the topic is TFA.
To the extent that you're fond of free software and RMS, that's nice, but the topic is TFA.
Alright, we're discussing "open" vs "free". Right now I don't care too much about semantics..
For anyone reading this that don't know what we're on about , read --> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.h...
(edit: I generally agree with RMS's points. I might confuse "open" and "free". For anyone not native to English these words might be interchangeable. I'm not a native English speaker. It becomes clearer when you define the words such as done in http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.h... , but in a day to day conversation, it's easy to get the exact definitions wrong)
For anyone reading this that don't know what we're on about , read --> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.h...
(edit: I generally agree with RMS's points. I might confuse "open" and "free". For anyone not native to English these words might be interchangeable. I'm not a native English speaker. It becomes clearer when you define the words such as done in http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.h... , but in a day to day conversation, it's easy to get the exact definitions wrong)
"Alright, we're discussing "open" vs "free"."
No, we're not discussing one thing vs. another, we're discussing different things. That is a whole other situation entirely.
No, we're not discussing one thing vs. another, we're discussing different things. That is a whole other situation entirely.
(yea I realized my distance from the TFA half way through my first post.. but decided to post anyway. (possibly a bad decision). And it has lead to a bit of a discussion. Which is good -- which is what I like)
Maybe we should all start stressing the difference between "Open" and simply "Available"
Michael, do you also see Appleseed, Diaspora, OneSocialWeb and Buddycloud as part of a "federated social network" movement?
Are there any concrete steps the different projects are taking to work together?
Are there any concrete steps the different projects are taking to work together?
Most definitely, I think we all see ourselves that way. There was a Federated Social Web conference in July that was pretty well attended by the different projects, and I believe a follow-up event is in the early planning stages. We also have a federated social web mailing list, with w3c representation.
We're all interested in inter-operability. It's still too early to tell what shape that will take, we're all experimenting in different directions, but from my take on it, the future looks bright for interoperability.
We may find ourselves with 3+ protocols early on, but they'll all be open, documented and available to anyone, and the different projects hopefully will try and support more than one protocol. But eventually, something will rise to the top, it's just too early to tell what that will be at this point.
But that's not hindering anybody's progress, in fact, in a lot of ways, the platform can be a lot more difficult to build than the protocol.
We're all interested in inter-operability. It's still too early to tell what shape that will take, we're all experimenting in different directions, but from my take on it, the future looks bright for interoperability.
We may find ourselves with 3+ protocols early on, but they'll all be open, documented and available to anyone, and the different projects hopefully will try and support more than one protocol. But eventually, something will rise to the top, it's just too early to tell what that will be at this point.
But that's not hindering anybody's progress, in fact, in a lot of ways, the platform can be a lot more difficult to build than the protocol.
We're also all participating in the http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/socialweb/
Am I the only one who found the like button and the disquis on that page ironic?
Well in all fairness, I would assume that most API's and Services have some form of disclaimer.
What TOTALLY 100% open service have you ever seen?
What TOTALLY 100% open service have you ever seen?
This. Frankly, there has to be TOS around any API released, because there are always nefarious uses just waiting to be exploited by non-"legit" consumers.
I realize that "legit" is a subjective term, so well, that is why TOS for API's are needed.
I realize that "legit" is a subjective term, so well, that is why TOS for API's are needed.
This. Frankly, there has to be TOS around any API released, because there are always nefarious uses just waiting to be exploited by non-"legit" consumers.
Actually, you can (and should) build protections against spam and improper use into the protocol instead of relying on a centralized gatekeeper. All truly open systems do this.
Actually, you can (and should) build protections against spam and improper use into the protocol instead of relying on a centralized gatekeeper. All truly open systems do this.
I really don't think there is anything to complain about here. When I hear that an API is "open", I have always assumed that means that it is published, and open to the public to use, both of which are true of the Twitter API.
However, I have never assumed that "open" means that I have a right to abuse a publicly available API without getting banned for doing so.
However, I have never assumed that "open" means that I have a right to abuse a publicly available API without getting banned for doing so.
I've never met RMS, and as far as I call tell he might be a bit weird, but I still owe him the greatest degree of respect. Thanks to him, and to people like him, I was able to grow up with software I could hack on my own. I started learning proper programming in the early 90's, and I could do that using free (I'm not going to qualify what type of free we're talking about. If you don't know, you're not on HN) software and the reason is for people like him who lead the way
(ok, this post might be more about protocols rather than software, but the main gist of my point still remains)