[kwlug-disc] OSS opportunity to go mainstream, big time

[Khalid Baheyeldin]

On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 10:21 AM, Insurance Squared Inc. <
gcooke at insurancesquared.com> wrote:

> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11326157
>
>
> Basically it's an opensource alternative to facebook.  I read a bit about
> it a while ago and I'm very excited about it - I think it has huge
> potential.  And I don't even facebook.
>
> (i.e. instead of one site, maybe we can run individual facebook type apps
> on our own servers.  My community can then interface with your community,
> etc).
>

Diaspora is not the only game in town. It got a lot of media exposure for
some reason and was funded by public donations before they started.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20004895-36.html
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the-personally-controlled-do-it-all-distr

Before it existed, there was Apple Seed
http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/ which had code and worked for
sometime. But it did not have the buzz around it.

But what is important is not a package that you download, what is important
is the protocol to connect these sites into a federated network of
mini-Facebooks.

The Salmon Protocol is the promising one http://www.salmon-protocol.org/

Still, the main challenge is getting all your friends to quit Facebook and
go to one of the federated nodes where privacy is better.

Not easy, since it is a social problem not a technical one.

That is, unless Facebook themselves open up using Salmon or equivalent. I
don't see them doing that though for obvious reasons.
-- 
Khalid M. Baheyeldin
2bits.com, Inc.
http://2bits.com
Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. --  Edsger W.Dijkstra
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. --   Leonardo da Vinci
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