Network services/Draft statement: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:49, 31 March 2008

The current generation of network services provide significant advantages over traditional locally installed software in reliability, ease of deployment, collaboration, and data aggregation. As a result, such services have become extremely common, and many users have begun to use such services - provided by third parties - in preference to traditional software provisioned by themselves or their organizations.

On March 16th, 2008, a workgroup convened at the FSF to discuss issues of freedom for users of network services. We considered a number of issues, among them what impacts these services have on user freedom, how implementers of network services can help or harm their neighbors, and how deployers of services can tell which services are friendly to freedom. We believe this will be an ongoing conversation, potentially spanning many years, and our hope is that the FSF will expand its traditional role of moral and technical leadership to include this area.

We consider network services that are Free Software, and which share Free Data, as a good starting-point for ensuring users' freedom. Although we have not yet formally defined what might constitute a 'Free Service', we do have suggestions that users, developers, and deployers should consider when developing, deploying, and choosing software.

Developers of network service software are encouraged to:
- use the Affero GPL for their software to ensure that users of services have freedom to examine the source or implement their own instance.
- develop freely-licensed, user-controlled alternatives to existing popular but non-Free network services.
- develop software and architecture that can replace centralized services and data storage with distributed software and data deployment, giving control back to users and deployers.
Deployers of network service software are encouraged to:
- choose Free Software for your service
- release customizations to services under an appropriate license.
- Make data available to the service's users (not necessarily the general public) under a free data license, such as those approved for Open Knowledge or Free Cultural Works.
Users should consider very carefully whether to use software on someone else's computer at all. While we acknowledge that such services may have substantial benefits, they may also create new problems, like locking in users to particular services, or compromising user privacy. Many hosted applications have Free Software equivalents that run on your own desktop or laptop. When deciding whether to use a network service, look for implementers that use Free Software, provide source code, and that make their data available under a free license, so that when necessary you still have the freedom to modify or replicate the service without losing your own data.

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-Increasingly computer users depend on '''network services''' provided by a third-party for their computing needs. Social software, software-as-a-service, and application hosting have become an important part of the "always on" Internet culture.
+The current generation of '''network services''' provide significant advantages over traditional locally installed software in reliability, ease of deployment, collaboration, and data aggregation. As a result, such services have become extremely common, and many users have begun to use such services - provided by third parties - in preference to traditional software provisioned by themselves or their organizations.
-On March 16th, 2008, a workgroup convened at the FSF to discuss issues of freedom for users of network services. We considered a number of issues: how implementers of network services help their neighbors, and how users can tell which services are friendly to freedom. We believe this will be an ongoing conversation, and our hope is that the FSF will continue to take a role of moral and technical leadership in this area.
+On March 16th, 2008, a workgroup convened at the FSF to discuss issues of freedom for users of network services. We considered a number of issues, among them what impacts these services have on user freedom, how implementers of network services can help or harm their neighbors, and how deployers of services can tell which services are friendly to freedom. We believe this will be an ongoing conversation, potentially spanning many years, and our hope is that the FSF will expand its traditional role of moral and technical leadership to include this area.
-We consider network services that are '''Free Software''', and which share '''Free Data''', as a good starting-point for ensuring users' freedom. Although we do not yet have formal recommendations for users, developers, or implementers, we do have guidelines for each group.
+We consider network services that are '''Free Software''', and which share '''Free Data''', as a good starting-point for ensuring users' freedom. Although we have not yet formally defined what might constitute a 'Free Service', we do have suggestions that users, developers, and deployers should consider when developing, deploying, and choosing software.
 * '''Developers''' of network service software are encouraged to:
 ** use the Affero GPL for their software to ensure that users of services have freedom to examine the source or implement their own instance.
-** create distributed, user-controlled Free Software replacements for popular but non-Free services that already exist.
+** develop freely-licensed, user-controlled alternatives to existing popular but non-Free network services.
-* '''Implementers''' should make their software Free Software, and share source code with their users and with their fellow development community whether or not they are required to do so by license terms. They should make any data available under a free license, such as the FDL. Implementers should review existing definitions, such as the [http://www.opendefinition.org/osd Open Service Definition], and see if their implementations comply.
+** develop software and architecture that can replace centralized services and data storage with distributed software and data deployment, giving control back to users and deployers.
-* '''Users''' should consider very carefully whether to use software on someone else's computer at all. Especially if the data you are working with is sensitive or private, carefully weigh the pros and cons of using someone else's computer rather than your own. Many hosted applications have Free Software equivalents that run on your own desktop or laptop. When deciding whether to use a network service, look for implementers that use Free Software, provide source code, and that make their data available under a free license.
+* '''Deployers''' of network service software are encouraged to:
+** choose Free Software for your service
+** release customizations to services under an appropriate license.
+** Make data available to the service's users (not necessarily the general public) under a free data license, such as those approved for [http://opendefinition.org/licenses Open Knowledge] or [http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses Free Cultural Works].
+* '''Users''' should consider very carefully whether to use software on someone else's computer at all. While we acknowledge that such services may have substantial benefits, they may also create new problems, like locking in users to particular services, or compromising user privacy. Many hosted applications have Free Software equivalents that run on your own desktop or laptop. When deciding whether to use a network service, look for implementers that use Free Software, provide source code, and that make their data available under a free license, so that when necessary you still have the freedom to modify or replicate the service without losing your own data.