dave.ofmassdestruction.com

When the idea of web-based apps first started to look more viable there was an interesting debate within the open source community. The debate came down to the question of whether it mattered if you had the source-code of web hosted software. For the most part I think it does – especially if the developer wants faster development and more eyes looking at bugs/holes.

Having said that, freedom for a web-app means something completely different when it comes to the users data. This could not be more evident than with the recent news of hapless Microsoft destroying all data on T-Mobile Sidekick phones. After this news broke the tech-blogs were awash with damnation of “the cloud”. How could we ever trust anyone to store our data elsewhere? What were we thinking?

Well, we were thinking that its nice to always have our apps and our data available no matter where we are or what device we are using. We thought, its nice to have someone else provide storage for our ever-growing bits. But they are right in questioning our reliance on others to always get it right when it comes to protecting that data from rookie mistakes, changes in the direction of the app, or becoming evil.

So for the cloud to work, user must always have access to their data. That doesn’t mean the user simply gets to see their data in the app, that means that the user is at all times able to retrieve their data, and in a format that is transferable to other applications. Period. End of story. Anything less than that is a failure due to the reasons the Microsoft case so aptly showcased. Of course this means that the user must also be proactive in retrieving their data from time to time if it is truly important to them, but that has always been the case.

Its important to note that the largest purveyor of apps “in the cloud”, Google, has had a somewhat quiet campaign to provide this type of data retrieval for a while now. Called “Data Liberation” (and tracked at the Data Liberation Blog) they have been slowly making sure all their apps have some way for users to retrieve their data. The newest tool comes to Google Dos which has just added the “Convert, Zip, and Download” feature which allows you to easily grab some or all of your documents as a zip file (converted to whichever available format you would like). This is the most powerful of Google’s data retrieval tools so far and I hope all of their apps make it this easy (including Gmail which can do better than simply offering POP downloads). Still, it is good to point out Google proactively “not being evil” when so many folks currently attempt to disprove their famous motto.

I have been using Google Docs pretty steadily for a few months now – and I really like it. It has been great for me except in one instance – when I was in Rwanda at one point the connection was far too slow for me to use it. A bit surprising considering Google was one of the few “ajaxy” sites that still had very low page-load times. Yes, “ajaxy” is a technical term.

That problem disappeared today. I’m sure I’m one of a billion people today to write about Google adding “offline documents” action but I’ve been pretty damn impressed with the whole suite for quite a while and wanted to share with those who may not know.

Now they just need to make a build of “Google Gears” that works with Firefox 3 beta.

John, it is a shame that you’ve slipped on your Giant Scissors ranking on Google. However, I am happy to report that I am still in the top 5 for “Yank My Doodle, its a Dandy“. I feel really good about that.

Now that my Australian friends aren’t talking to me anymore (I can’t help it, the Simpsons are funny!) I’ll turn my attention back to the world of licenses (I’m a party guy)

I read on the New York Times’ Freakonomics Blog a pretty interesting and clever article about making anti-EULA clauses via email. The EULA, of course, is End User License Agreement most famously used by Microsoft in their “if you break this shrinkwrap, you accept the terms…” maneuvers. This article posits that maybe the customer can send their own EULA right back to the company whose software or service presented them with a EULA to begin with.

Something like:

READ CAREFULLY. By reading this email, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies (”BOGUS AGREEMENTS”) that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

I like it. This appeals to some mischievous side I have and to my non-legal brain has about as much merit as most presentations of EULAs. Still, I do think it misses the point a bit.

There was one passage in this article that caught my attention which leads me to why they are missing the point:

In thinking about this issue, it’s useful to separate the question of whether the seller’s or the buyer’s terms are reasonable. There are certainly plenty examples of obnoxious EULAs that have prohibited users from criticizing the seller’s product. But anti-EULAs could also be oppressive — for example, voiding even the reasonable restrictions of the Free Software Foundation’s GNU General Public License.

I wonder if our friends at Freakonomics have actually looked into what has happened to those who have broken the conditions of the GPL? If my memory serves me correctly, only the most recent case has someone actually been taken to court for doing so. Mostly people are sent letters asking them to correct their mistake. Am I wrong in this? I really don’t think so. If anything, the FSF probably could have been more aggressive in this regard.

But let’s not forget that the GPL and a EULA are very much the same thing: copy-right: the right to copy. All this is is a method that defines the rights a creator is granting for someone to have a copy. If you really don’t agree with the rights you are being granted – by all means don’t use it. You can make a fuss about it. You can tell your friends, or even tell the company why you aren’t using it. Yes, the shrinkwrap acceptance is backhanded but just because you don’t like that practice, the license the company has chosen isn’t somehow magically voided. If you want to use their software, you accept the terms. It doesn’t get much simpler.

The Freakonomics guys suggest that we can get around these pesky rights decisions through online payment systems offering anti-EULA protections when paying through their service (of course, that comes after accepting the EULA for their services). Is the idea to use the muscle of Paypal or Google Payments to come down on the evil EULA-doer? This cheapens the law…. or at least moves it into a market-driven corporate realm where the bigger the market-cap, the more correct they are. “I paid you through Google whose market cap is $211B, therefore your copyright is void.” That, to me, is scarier than a EULA.

The system that really needs to be in place is one of education. Lets inform companies that overly-protective rights are not consumer-friendly and are simply bad business. What better way to start that education than clicking on “I do not agree”?

Over the last few months, the applications I use on a daily basis are migrating even further online than I suspected that they would. Its really quite impressive the ideas people are coming up with for tools, entertainment, information, etc. This is lending more and more credence to my old Red Hat co-workers ideas about an online desktop. If you don’t know what that means, take a moment to go through the tour of what they have so far. Unfortunately for me, I am currently an Ubuntu user and don’t have time to build the desktop and all its dependencies but perhaps I will find a moment to load Fedora 8 on another machine and give it a look.

Yesterday and today I’ve been playing with iwantsandy.com which is an inventive “personal assistant” the CTO of O’Reilly has cooked up. Its had some bumps with traffic but the functionality is pretty great. I can see me using an online desktop and getting a little mugshot pop-up of reminders from Sandy, just as easily as I can see myself using Google Docs and Google Notebook on the same desktop. I have held a somewhat skeptical eye to mugshot so far, but the online desktop is a great idea. It also can lend itself well to mugshot and perhaps make it more useful to me in the long run.

I’ll be watching with anticipation!

I wrote a small post about the new open mobile technologies (android, openmoko) and our work over on the job blog. I am really excited about the new open platforms and what we can do with them. I have to say that my favorite part of my current job, and most of my old jobs, is just coming up with new ideas… even if we never even act on them.

I have been really digging Google Documents lately. I very much like the collarborative tools that are inherent in a web-based system and Google seems to be getting it right so far. Obviously as new as it is it could use some improvement but I am sure that will come.

Of course the biggest criticism of Google Docs is “Google owns your documents”. Yes, that’s true. But that argument pre-supposes a few things. First, its that Google has some evil plans for my documents. I seriously doubt that and I am willing, at least at this point, to trust their intentions. It also assumes that I can’t get my documents out of the system – and I can. Were they to take that retrieval away I would never use their system again and they would lose. Lastly it assumes that Google would want to do something with my docs – or my information. More power to them if they think there is something to be gained by my docs – its going to be a very bad business plan.

I don’t really have those worries about Google – its also why I use Gmail. Will I always do so? Who knows – but right now I am enjoying their services and I think they are offering far more innovation towards what computing is going to look like in the very near future. Want a good example? How about today’s shared matrix of local candidates by Orangepolitics.org.