We need an Open Service Definition

July 18th, 2007

There’s a buzz at GUADEC, an open source computer desktop conference in Birmingham right now, about the idea of the Online Desktop. Increasingly we all use web services rather than local applications, and store our own personal knowledge in other people’s proprietary formats and software. GMail rather than Outlook, Flickr rather than iPhoto.

Just as the Open Knowledge Definition protects our public knowledge, we also need something to protect our private data. Here’s what the Gnome people are saying about the idea of an Open Service Definition:

We need a Free Services License, Open Service Definition, Free Terms of Service, or whatever we want to call it. I see more and more people talking about this, even aside from the GNOME Online Desktop conversation. Topics to cover in an Open Service Definition might include ability to export your personal data, your right to own your data’s copyright, etc. There may also be a requirement to use an Affero GPL type of license. This is very open-ended and unclear at the moment.

To me the reason open source works is that multiple parties with competing interests can collaborate on the software. What would make multiple parties interested in collaborating on a service? Probably a fairly radical-sounding set of requirements. But the GPL was pretty radical-sounding too, many years ago.

(from Havoc Pennington’s blog)

And perhaps, in addition to protecting our private data, the same definition could reward services which use and promote open knowledge. Something using data from OpenStreetMap should perhaps be more likely to be branded an Open Service than something which uses Google Maps.

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Posted by Francis Irving Filed in Uncategorized

4 Responses to “We need an Open Service Definition”

  1. Rufus Pollock Says:
    July 27th, 2007 at 9:22 am

    I entirely agree — and we’ve been discussing for a while now :) See your post on okfn-discuss (and the following thread) back from last October entitled: Open Service Definition.

    Out of that discussion came the following proposed definition of an open service:

    An open service is one:

    1. Whose data is open as defined by the open knowledge definition though with the exception that where the data is personal in nature the data need only be made available to the user (i.e. the owner of that account).
    2. Whose source code is F/OSS and is made available.

    Remark: The OKD requires technological openness (i.e. provision in an open format)

    Remark: The OKD also requires that data should be accessible in some machine automatable manner (e.g. through a standardized open API or via download from a standard specified location).

  2. My del.icio.us bookmarks for August 1st through August 2nd » the billblog Says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 12:40 am

    [...] Open Knowledge Foundation Weblog » Blog Archive » We need an Open Service Definition - Deep and useful thinking from Francis dvorak media openservice web2.0   « My del.icio.us bookmarks for July 30th through July 31st |   [...]

  3. Open Source Links: 18-07-2007 | Commercial Open Source Software Says:
    April 30th, 2008 at 11:51 am

    [...] We need an Open Service Definition - People at GNOME (Havoc Pennington’s blog) is thinking to to protect our private data, , but the same definition could reward also services which use and promote open knowledge. Interesting issue. [...]

  4. Wybo Wiersma Says:
    September 11th, 2008 at 12:19 pm

    We of the LogiLogi Foundation are striving for this too; for A Free Web.

    See http://foundation.logilogi.org

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