JoinDiaspora and other SaaS alternatives
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi everyone If you are on Diaspora's main pod (at joindiaspora.com) please consider adding me to your aspects -> magicfab@joindiaspora.com If you are not but would like to be, please email me offlist with your preferred email address and I can send you an invite. To find out more about Diaspora, see: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Diaspora I think in SFD's context it's important we anticipate questions about using SaaS social networks, particularly Facebook and G+, and if we know or have tried others such as Diaspora, it makes for an interesting discussion on SFD, or even a viable alternative. I'd love to hear opinions on this, although my goal is only to provide another tools for SaaS discussion on SFD should you come across such questions. And interesting list of such alternatives for other services can be seen here, don't hesitate to augment/modify it: http://wiki.autonomo.us/Wish_list Cheers, Fabian Rodriguez Montral, QC, Canada http://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:MagicFab ~ http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2011/Canada/Montreal -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: PGP/Mime available upon request Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk5rRl8ACgkQfUcTXFrypNVnjwCgt8MIpdhHezvOPOsad1h0Ht02 5IYAoPSjONXaXNB1DtR/XfQ7EEQivzN3 =Lhh1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Hi Fabrian, I would be more than happy to try out diaspora so, I went to joindiaspora.com and invite myself~ it works too! Pockey On 09/10/2011 07:13 PM, Fabián Rodríguez wrote:
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Hi everyone
If you are on Diaspora's main pod (at joindiaspora.com) please consider adding me to your aspects -> magicfab@joindiaspora.com
If you are not but would like to be, please email me offlist with your preferred email address and I can send you an invite. To find out more about Diaspora, see: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Diaspora
I think in SFD's context it's important we anticipate questions about using SaaS social networks, particularly Facebook and G+, and if we know or have tried others such as Diaspora, it makes for an interesting discussion on SFD, or even a viable alternative.
I'd love to hear opinions on this, although my goal is only to provide another tools for SaaS discussion on SFD should you come across such questions. And interesting list of such alternatives for other services can be seen here, don't hesitate to augment/modify it: http://wiki.autonomo.us/Wish_list
Cheers,
Fabian Rodriguez Montral, QC, Canada http://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:MagicFab ~ http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2011/Canada/Montreal
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: PGP/Mime available upon request Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
iEYEARECAAYFAk5rRl8ACgkQfUcTXFrypNVnjwCgt8MIpdhHezvOPOsad1h0Ht02 5IYAoPSjONXaXNB1DtR/XfQ7EEQivzN3 =Lhh1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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another tools for SaaS discussion on SFD should you come across such
No idea what SaaS was. I looked it up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SaaS "Software as a service" Just another marketing buzzword: "The concept of SaaS has been popularized by Salesforce.com, which coined the term "The End of Software" to differentiate its (then new) software-as-a-service approach .... Yawn ! Amusing bit: "Data escrow .... 85 percent of the participants wanted to take a copy of their SaaS data. A third of these participants wanted a copy on a daily basis." People askng about SAAS & clouds could be told: Remote data & service clouds can evaporate. A free app. or server one installs localy from eg an SFD CDROM/DVD, is an app. & data a remote admin on a remote SAAS server + cloud can't break for you by unexpected upgrade, service removal, bankruptcy, net outage, or deciding to go commercial & charge for next week. SAAS & clouds are not the direction UK government is going eg tax office & companies house (co. reg. authority) are pushing processing on to applicants PCs (Processing of PDF v. 1.7 editable forms for tax returns by Adobe Reader etc), Central servers are just for upload on completion, Not remote SAAS processing. Cheers, Julian -- Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com Reply below, not above; Indent with "> "; Cumulative like a play script. Format: Plain text. Not HTML, multipart/alternative, base64, quoted-printable. http://www.softwarefreedomday.org 17th Sept, http://berklix.org/sfd/ Oct.
On 10/09/11 12:13, Fabián Rodríguez wrote:
Hi everyone
If you are on Diaspora's main pod (at joindiaspora.com) please consider adding me to your aspects -> magicfab@joindiaspora.com
If you are not but would like to be, please email me offlist with your preferred email address and I can send you an invite. To find out more about Diaspora, see: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Diaspora
This refers to the software (but there isn't much on it): https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Diaspora_%28software%29 (At least :) Two things concern me about Diaspora: 1. The ability of the project to write secure code. Writing secure code is essential for a project of this kind. http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/09/22/security-lessons-learned-from-the-diaspo... 2. The contributor agreement. http://www.vedetta.com/a-few-notes-on-diaspora-the-diaspora-verdict The agreement itself is on Google Docs and requires a login to view it. FaiF? Mike.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 09/10/2011 11:54 AM, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
another tools for SaaS discussion on SFD should you come across such
No idea what SaaS was. I looked it up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SaaS "Software as a service" Just another marketing buzzword: "The concept of SaaS has been popularized by Salesforce.com, which coined the term "The End of Software" to differentiate its (then new) software-as-a-service approach .... Yawn !
...and an important one. Much like "Cloud Computing", I get questions phrased using such vocabulary all the time. Sorry I dropped it too fast here, anyone interested can read further on SaaS, for example articles like this: http://autonomo.us/2010/03/richard-stallman-on-saas/ I don't necessarily need or want everyone to agree on everything there, but I think it's important to remain critical while welcoming questions and discussions around some of the technical/ethical issues such tools may introduce. Different people reach different levels of readiness regarding setting their own services and ultimately being 100% free and autonomous. Just going through such an exercise regarding email, webmail and web hosting is a rare exercise.
Amusing bit: "Data escrow .... 85 percent of the participants wanted to take a copy of their SaaS data. A third of these participants wanted a copy on a daily basis."
People askng about SAAS & clouds could be told: Remote data & service clouds can evaporate.
They seldom do, but when they do... a notable example is Geocities, Can anyone cite others ?
A free app. or server one installs localy from eg an SFD CDROM/DVD, is an app. & data a remote admin on a remote SAAS server + cloud can't break for you by unexpected upgrade, service removal, bankruptcy, net outage, or deciding to go commercial & charge for next week.
I'd be careful there. Service removal can happen at many levels and in fact one of the arguments for using SaaS is lower cost of redundancy, higher availability, etc. -> again, not saying this is absolute truth, just one of the counter-arguments.
SAAS & clouds are not the direction UK government is going eg tax office & companies house (co. reg. authority) are pushing processing on to applicants PCs (Processing of PDF v. 1.7 editable forms for tax returns by Adobe Reader etc), Central servers are just for upload on completion, Not remote SAAS processing.
Hmmm local examples are even more interesting. I don't quite see the argument against SaaS on remote servers here, though. Regarding Michael's remarks: On 09/11/2011 05:09 AM, Michael Dorrington wrote: [...]
(At least :) Two things concern me about Diaspora:
1. The ability of the project to write secure code. Writing secure code is essential for a project of this kind. http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/09/22/security-lessons-learned-from-the-diaspo...
Given
the context and the nature of the project, and its current status (not even beta), I don't see a problem there. In fact it's interesting anyone else would actually care about it enough to check the code, blog about it, and explain what failed and can be improved there. I see a path and a goal, and people learning. I am deeply annoyed the devs use Apple systems, for example - how credible can their platform be if they don't even dogfood on FaiF ? Or why do they keep posting videos in YouTube only ? Some of us using their site raise such concerns, and there is room for that too. I also see an opportunity to learn more about the difficulties and current failures. Even if Diaspora fails spectacularly as a finished project/product, many lessons are there for the taking.
2. The contributor agreement. http://www.vedetta.com/a-few-notes-on-diaspora-the-diaspora-verdict The agreement itself is on Google Docs and requires a login to view it. FaiF?
Have you requested for it to be published elsewhere ? You know, that article has excellent information on many things needed for a project to be truly FaiF which would probably scare away anyone not willing to go through all the probems found. The main point I tend to focus on and amplify and I feel applies to many situations where we try to get people to use free technology and content, is "The current Diaspora flaws are fixable." Will they fix them ? Will people join to fix them or just sit around ? Is it worth our attention (or can we afford not to try and know this project) ? Again, I don't particularly embrace 200% or agree with everyone and everything about Diaspora, but not looking under its surface as a free software advocate seems like a lost opportunity on many levels. I'm also not using this as my sole "channel" to share stuff, so if any other social networks that have reached or target being FaiF are out there, I'll glaldy add them to my tools :) Cheers, Fabian Rodriguez Montreal, QC, Canada http://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:MagicFab ~ http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2011/Canada/Montreal -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: PGP/Mime available upon request Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk5su/EACgkQfUcTXFrypNUFqwCeMbd0E0SuxuUycp4xlO+xGnCg kjoAniv4Ap2nz4wj5s0a0M+CEz87iC5m =YUpl -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Fabi=E1n_Rodr=EDguez?= wrote:
On 09/10/2011 11:54 AM, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
SAAS & clouds are not the direction UK government is going eg tax office & companies house (co. reg. authority) are pushing processing on to applicants PCs (Processing of PDF v. 1.7 editable forms for tax returns by Adobe Reader etc), Central servers are just for upload on completion, Not remote SAAS processing.
Hmmm local examples are even more interesting. I don't quite see the argument against SaaS on remote servers here, though.
I mean: SAAS is _Service_), & Service (& servers) costs serious money. CDROMs & free software can undercut & compete. - One either pays money for service, - Or one gets advertised at to pay for the service, - Or one gets to be harvested in case of some "social" web sites, - Or in case of government, presumably to keep cost down, British tax office for corporation tax & companies house registration are having processing done on users PCs, & they're just providing lots of static web pages & up & down load, but avoiding bulk forms data input processing direct on line (full scale SAAS Service would cost more). Cheers, Julian -- Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com Reply below, not above; Indent with "> "; Cumulative like a play script. Format: Plain text. Not HTML, multipart/alternative, base64, quoted-printable. http://www.softwarefreedomday.org 17th Sept, http://berklix.org/sfd/ Oct.
other social networks that have reached or target being FaiF are out
buzzword fails. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=FaiF&go=Go Cheers, Julian -- Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com Reply below, not above; Indent with "> "; Cumulative like a play script. Format: Plain text. Not HTML, multipart/alternative, base64, quoted-printable. http://www.softwarefreedomday.org 17th Sept, http://berklix.org/sfd/ Oct.
On 11/09/11 14:47, Fabián Rodríguez wrote: <snip>
Regarding Michael's remarks:
On 09/11/2011 05:09 AM, Michael Dorrington wrote: [...]
(At least :) Two things concern me about Diaspora:
1. The ability of the project to write secure code. Writing secure code is essential for a project of this kind. http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/09/22/security-lessons-learned-from-the-diaspo...
Given
the context and the nature of the project, and its current status (not even beta), I don't see a problem there.
The problem is that security should be fundamental, integral part of the project, not something tacked on.
In fact it's interesting anyone else would actually care about it enough to check the code, blog about it, and explain what failed and can be improved there.
I see a path and a goal, and people learning. I am deeply annoyed the devs use Apple systems, for example - how credible can their platform be if they don't even dogfood on FaiF ? Or why do they keep posting videos in YouTube only ? Some of us using their site raise such concerns, and there is room for that too.
Things like that and the other stuff give me a bad feeling about this project.
I also see an opportunity to learn more about the difficulties and current failures. Even if Diaspora fails spectacularly as a finished project/product, many lessons are there for the taking.
2. The contributor agreement. http://www.vedetta.com/a-few-notes-on-diaspora-the-diaspora-verdict The agreement itself is on Google Docs and requires a login to view it. FaiF?
Have you requested for it to be published elsewhere ? You know, that article has excellent information on many things needed for a project to be truly FaiF which would probably scare away anyone not willing to go through all the probems found.
The main point I tend to focus on and amplify and I feel applies to many situations where we try to get people to use free technology and content, is "The current Diaspora flaws are fixable." Will they fix them ? Will people join to fix them or just sit around ? Is it worth our attention (or can we afford not to try and know this project) ?
It feels like it's broken at the core. :( Mike.
participants (4)
-
Fabián Rodríguez -
Julian H. Stacey -
Michael Dorrington -
Pockey Lam