Re: [GNU/consensus] <unlike-us> [Unlike-us-tech] About D-CENT - fork to unlike-us-tech list

[Harry Halpin]

On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 3:36 PM, hellekin <address@hidden> wrote:
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> On 10/01/2014 06:46 AM, Gert van Velzen wrote:
>> Thanks for posting this Geert.
>>
>> Scanning this, it seems they're getting many things right.
>> Also OKF and W3C involvement is a good sign for interoperability.
>>
> *** Really?
>
> Here is my opinion: this is planted by the forces of the Status Quo to
> keep social networking under control of the prying eyes.

I understand some people are paranoid, but again, come back when you
have a real analysis.

>
> I read, on page 4: "Why open standards? Why not just open-source? For
> many programmers, using open-source software - or the more restrictive
> "free software" as defined by GPL licensing - is enough."
>
> That is obviously an attack on software freedom. The wording here leaves
> no doubt that the author of that paper want to shun free software
> (written in quotes!) by calling it restrictive, and pose open-source as
> a legitimate, but insufficient "model".

No, but the GPL licensing is not enough - as even the FSF admits. For
example, you could have real patents and still have copyright. Thus,
the FSF recommends one use copyright assignment on contributions. The
W3C is the strongest model we have for fighting against software
patents. That's why the Free Software Foundation has people in the
Social Web Working Group W3C started (which D-CENT is funding
currently):

http://www.w3.org/wiki/Socialwg

Also please actually try to read the paper :) Any software we will
produce will, taking into account dependencies, be based on GPL/AGPL.
We are just pointing out the rather obvious point that a decentralized
social network without open royalty-free standards is just a
decentralized ghetto that can't connect to other decentralized social
networks, so we'll also take care of making sure we use open
standards.


>
> It attributes the failure of the Diaspora* project to its licensing,
> framing the technology, rather than the invention, and its obvious lack
> of compatibility with the existing environment, as the problem.  It
> proceeds to attack peer-to-peer technologies as a whole, with the same
> lack of perspective, simply to push a unique agenda of shedding light to
> some technologies that we know cannot address the global surveillance
> issue that we've been submitted to.

As someone who worked with Ilya on looking at the standardization
interop and knew him, he agreed with the need for open standards in
addition to free software. His death was a great loss to our wider
community.

And again, if you have a technology that solves all the problems of
global surveillance, I'd be all ears.

>
> I could go on for every single chapter of this paper.  It's so oriented
> to a single aspect of social networking technology that it's shameful to
> say the least.  The technical value of this document nears zero.  The
> first version of it, a few years ago, was already a complete rip-off of
> the work done by grassroots activists.  That is how they receive EU
> funding in the first place: by co-opting Lorea, without even contacting
> the team for consulting or support--now when it comes to free software,
> the authors are happy to make it serve their interest.  The D-Cent
> perspective certainly evolved a lot since their first publication, but
> frankly, co-option is not where you want to be looking at.

Note that as I was just with Pablo two days ago, and we did contact
those folks at the proposal, who at the time are were more interested
in Bitcoin than maintaining or upgrading Lorea. Instead, Jacques Toret
and IN3 is managing the user-studies of people's behavior on Lorea and
other platforms, such as Telegram (which I don't support at all) that
activists in Spain are actually using.

I do agree with James Boggs, who said any "revolution must be
majoritarian".  I'd rather see security and privacy for *everyone*,
not just a few people.

>
> ==
> hk
>
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