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Breaking Open Facebook With FOSS

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the get-out-of-the-silo-free dept.

NewsCloud writes "Since last December, Facebook has grown from 12 to 47 million users and third-party developers have launched more than 6,000 applications with its API. While privacy advocates have been concerned about Google for the past several years, most of us are just beginning to comprehend Facebook's growing impact on who, when, what and how we connect with friends. Microsoft's recent $240 million investment in the company gives it all the capital it needs for further growth. Last August, Wired published two unusual stories describing how consumers might link together a variety of third-party services to emulate Facebook, and ultimately calling on the open-source software community to build alternatives to the service. Inspired in part by Wired, I've posted some ideas describing what would be needed for an open source architecture for social networking."

7 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. Beginning to comprehend...what, again? by DragonWriter · · Score: 4, Funny

    While privacy advocates have been concerned about Google for the past several years, most of us are just beginning to comprehend Facebook's growing impact on who, when, what and how we connect with friends.


    I don't know what "us" you are talking about, but I've realized for years that Facebook has no effect on who, when, what, and how I connect with friends, and that's unlikely to change anytime in the near future.

    1. Re:Beginning to comprehend...what, again? by garbletext · · Score: 3, Funny

      then you wouldn't know whether they liked Britney spears or not, or be able to see 100 drunken photos of them before you even said hello.

  2. Re:Screw Facebook by SurturZ · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't know what the hell kind of drugs you are on, but your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

  3. Re:6000 applications... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Personally, I look forward to a FOSS facebook clone. It will have the fun and human warmth of LKML, the ease of use of vi, and the male-female ratio of an 18th century ship of the line. **bliss**

  4. And sadly... by Tarlus · · Score: 3, Funny

    And sadly, those of us who are involved programmers in the FOSS community aren't social enough to have a Facebook profile.

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  5. I stopped Social Networking a long time ago... by Derek+Loev · · Score: 3, Funny

    /etc/init.d/net.social stop

  6. Re:slashdot comment profiling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I think the best slashdot comments are the ones you dont expect.
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