[Freedombox-discuss] objectives

[joshuaspodek@yahoo.com (Joshua Spodek)]

On Wed, 2011-06-08 at 20:50 +0000,
freedombox-discuss-request at lists.alioth.debian.org wrote:
> Catching up on recent list traffic, it's clear to me that we're
> suffering from the fact that "freedombox" means so many different
> things
> to different people.  As a member of the foundation's board and chair
> of
> the technical advisory committee, I've spent a lot of time thinking
> about what it is that we're actually trying to do, and pondering how
> to
> get from where we are to a useful reference implementation.  To that
> end, I think it's time to articulate a roadmap, starting with a
> statement of objectives for the core that consolidates our shared
> values
> and vision, and provides a framework for turning our is/is-not
> thinking
> in to a manifest of software components to be included in a system
> image. 
> 
> As my own thinking has evolved, I now believe we are pursuing two
> related but different top-level objectives.  One derives from Eben's
> early articulation of motivation that many of us responded to a year
> or
> more ago, the other is driven largely by our collective reaction to
> recent global circumstances.   
> 
>   We want to provide a way for people to share with others narrowly or
>   broadly a set of thoughts and media objects hosted on infrastructure
>   they own themselves and thus have ultimate control over, as an
>   attractive alternative to such sharing via popular existing
> services 
>   that provide little control.
> 
>   We want to provide a way for people to communicate with each other
>   privately, minimizing their dependence on service providers, and
>   hopefully providing some resiliency in the face of service outages.
> 
> I'd love feedback on whether that resonates well with others on the
> list.  Do the things you care about fit in, or is there another major
> objective that I'm missing? 

I generally echo the +1's for this post.

I'd like to respectfully offer a complementary perspective. Following
the roadmap analogy, where Bdale is asking if we have different
destinations, I'm thinking about the path to those objectives.

I'd suggest that different groups of users, perhaps overlapping, want
those objectives. We, the pre-0.1 people, want to get something started
*at all*. Communities who want specific outcomes can do so once they
have something more than talk to work with. They will know their needs
and how to meet them better than we do now. The FreedomBox of a teenage
socialite may differ from that of a political dissident or an
entrepreneur. But they may come from the same roots. We may not know
what those differences should be.

I propose restating the objectives under consideration as

        We want *to enable people who want* to provide a way for people
        to share with others narrowly or broadly a set of thoughts and
        media objects hosted on infrastructure they own themselves and
        thus have ultimate control over, as an attractive alternative to
        such sharing via popular existing services that provide little
        control.

and

        We want *to enable people who want* to provide a way for people
        to communicate with each other privately, minimizing their
        dependence on service providers, and hopefully providing some
        resiliency in the face of service outages.

The proposed wording changes our goals from delivering a finished
product (finished by standards we don't know that well) to delivering a
merely functional product ready to be customized by people who know
their needs better than we. For those of us also in those other
communities, we can stay on and work with them.

These changes simplify our task. A goal of enabling others could mean we
have only one objective -- a minimally functional FreedomBox.

It also focuses us on getting *some* or *any* working FreedomBox instead
of speculating on future needs others know better. We don't need to
figure out everything later groups might need, simplifying discussions
here. We would only need to make sure we don't do anything that would
break future needed functionality.

I believe whatever the members of this mailing list come up with won't
be what achieves our goals. We will come up with the starting point for
us and others to build on.