MakoHill (LP09)

Software Freedom and Network Services

autonomo.us

Convened by the FSF as an independent group last year after the associate member meeting.

Produced the Franklin Street Statement.

The AGPL

Full License text of the AGPL. The wikipedia entry tells its history reasonably well.

Improving the FSS

• Distinguishing between different types of network services, like Software as a Service. Wikipedia, for example is not Software as Service, but is a network service. Users who want to live in freedom should reject software as a service, and where possible they should develop free software to do the same job.
• Prioritizing different types of actions (not everything in the FSS is equally important)
• Making clear why certain actions make sense.

Ultimately the FSF is about technological empowerment and ensuring that users have control over their software. When people start developing software in new ways, we have to rethink some of the things we've taken for granted for a long time.

We'll continue this conversation this afternoon and also tomorrow in unconference sessions.

References

• http://autonomo.us
• Franklin Street Statement
• Recording of Mako's talk from the 2008 member meeting on Freedom for Network Services