Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2011/11/24/google-plus.html
Most folks outside of technology fields and the software freedom
movement can’t grok why I’m not on Facebook. Facebook’s marketing has
reached most of the USA’s non-technical Internet users. On the upside,
Facebook gave the masses access to something akin to blogging. But, as
with most technology controlled by for-profit companies, Facebook is
proprietary software. Facebook, as a software application, is written
in a mix of server-side software that no one besides Facebook
employees can study, modify and share. On the client-side, Facebook is
an obfuscated, proprietary software Javascript application, which is
distributed to the user’s browser when they access facebook.com. Thus,
in my view, using Facebook is no different than installing a proprietary
binary program on my GNU/Linux desktop.
Most of the press critical of Facebook has focused on privacy, data
mining of users’ data on behalf of advertisers, and other types of data
autonomy concerns. Such concerns remain incredibly important too.
Nevertheless, since the advent of the software freedom community’s
concerns about network services a few years ago, I’ve maintained this
simple principle, that I still find correct: While I can agree that
merely liberating all software for an online application is not a
sufficient condition to treat the online users well, the
liberation of the software is certainly a necessary condition
for the freedom of the users. Releasing freely all code for the online
application the first step for freedom, autonomy, and privacy of the
users. Therefore, I certainly don’t give in myself to running
proprietary software on my
FaiF desktops. I simply
refuse to use Facebook.
Meanwhile, when Google Plus was announced, I didn’t see any fundamental
difference from Facebook. Of course, there are differences on the
subtle edges: for example, I do expect that Google will respect data
portability more than Facebook. However, I expect data mining for
advertisers’ behalf will be roughly the same, although Google will
likely be more subtle with advertising tie-in than Facebook, and thus
users will not notice it as much.
But, since I’m firstly a software freedom activist, on the primary
issue of my concern, there is absolutely no difference between Facebook
and Google Plus. Google Plus’ software is a mix of server-side
trade-secret software that only Google employees can study, share, and
modify, and a client-side proprietary Javascript application downloaded
into the users’ browsers when they access the website.
Yet, in a matter of just a few months, much of the online conversation
in the software freedom community has moved to Google Plus, and I’ve
heard very few people lament this situation. It’s not that I believe
we’ll succeed against proprietary software tomorrow, and I understand
fully that (unlike me) most people in the software freedom community
have important reasons to interact regularly with those outside of our
community. It’s not that I chastise software freedom developers and
activist for maintaining a minimal presence on these services to
interact with those who aren’t committed to our cause.
My actual complaint here is that Google Plus is becoming the default
location for discussion of software freedom issues. I’ve noticed
because I’ve recently discovered that I’ve missed a lot of community
conversations that are only occurring on Google Plus. (I’ve similarly
noticed that many of my Free Software contacts spam me to join Linkedin,
so I assume something similar is occurring there as well.)
What’s more, I’ve received more pressure than ever before to sign up
for not only Google Plus, but for Twitter, Linkedin, Google Hangout, Skype and other
socially-oriented online communication services. Indeed, just in the
last ten days, I’ve had three different software freedom development
projects and/or organizations request that I sign up for a proprietary
online communication service merely to attend a meeting or conference
call. (Update on 2013-02-16: I still get such requests on a monthly basis.) Of course, I refused, but I’ve not felt peer pressure this strong
since I was a teenager.
Indeed, the advent of proprietary social networking software adds a new
challenge to those of us who want to stand firm and resist proprietary
software. As adoption of services like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus,
Skype, Linkedin and Google Hangouts increases, those of us who resist using proprietary
software will come under ever-increasing peer pressure. Disturbingly,
I’ve found that peer pressure comes not only from folks outside
our community, but also from those who have, for
years, otherwise been supporters of the software freedom
movement.
When I point out that I use only Free Software, some respond that
Skype, Facebook, and Google Plus are convenient and do things that can’t
be done easily with Free Software currently. I don’t argue that point.
It’s easy to resist Microsoft Windows, or Internet Explorer, or any
other proprietary software that is substandard and works poorly. But
proprietary software developers aren’t necessarily stupid, nor
untalented. In fact, proprietary software developers are highly paid to
write easy-to-use, beautiful and enticing software (cross-reference
Apple, BTW). The challenge the software freedom community faces is not
merely to provide alternatives to the worst proprietary software, but to
also replace the most enticing proprietary software available. Yet, if
FaiF Software developers settle into being users of that enticing
proprietary software, the key inspiration for development
disappears.
The best motivator to write great new software is to solve a problem
that’s not yet solved. To inspire ourselves as FaiF Software
developers, we can’t complacently settle into use of proprietary
software applications as part of our daily workflow. That’s why you
won’t find me on Google Plus, Google Hangout, Facebook, Skype, Linkedin, Twitter or
any other proprietary software network service. You can phone with me
with SIP, you can read my blog and identi.ca feed, and chat with me on
IRC and XMPP, and those are the only places that I’ll be until there’s
Free Software replacements for those other services. I sometimes kid
myself into believing that I’m leading by example, but sadly few in the
software freedom community seem to be following.
