[CREATE] off topic: decentralised social networking

[Schrijver]

Since I became social network junky I worry a lot about the privacy implications of such centralised non-free software. So I figured social networking should be distributed. And also figured that this would be a ludicrous hassle to implement.

But last week I came across the onesocialweb project.
Their code went online last week (under the apache license). They rigged openfire XMPP (instant messaging) servers so that they have social functionality. You set up your on social network on such a server, and these servers can subsequently connect into what they call ‘the federation’. Distributed, connected!

http://onesocialweb.org
Since the release the first few nodes have already gone online.

I just wanted to point to this project because I think this and similar software can only become something if we start playing with it. Otherwise it just stays a lab project or thought experiment…
&social networking is here to stay, and in spite of common scepsis I believe it can be quite stimulating for creatives.

Cheers,

Eric Schrijver

ps

found this via the comments on the proposals at
http://wingolog.org/archives/2010/04/10/towards-a-gnu-autonomous-cloud
much more interesting links in the comments including
http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=1338 Eben Moglen; Freedom in the cloud