I think the contractor/gray PR company who is involved in spamming all web 2.0 sites also have idling slashdot mod accounts and modding down all the messages comes with the price.
MS can't admit their huge mistakes like Nokia did and they think, polishing the clunky UI, bribing IT departments and abusing sites will "fix" the situation.
Any device which you can install general purpose software (including deep, kernel level things on Symbian) and multi task is a smart phone.
If a future Symbian^3 or ^4 device does come with sub $100 price tag can do whatever my Nokia E71 can do, pity for me, I hurried. It doesn't change the fact that an army (100M+ devices/year) of devices, coming with Qt 4.x+ is on the way and if you are a developer who dismisses this _fact_ just because it isn't mentioned on your trendy web 2.0 sites, you are really missing something.
Barebones basic (and cheap!) device running a multi tasking/modern/qt based OS is a damn big deal, it can compare to Apple's situation when first OEM PC with Microsoft DOS shipped. We have all seen what happened later.
Unless IT guys get bribed by MS or they are plain stupid/ignorant, there are very very good solutions to access Exhange/MS servers on Blackberry and Symbian. In fact, Symbian ones come free in general.
Of course, having met a "Windows server" admin lately, I am not sure how will that idiot who recently forced an entire office to XP Pro from XP Home because he misunderstood a KB article will look for such solutions.
RIM enjoys a similar ignorance too, it is not widely known that most Symbian phones will happily logon to their infrastructure mostly for free. I am not talking about some garage software which uses reverse engineered things. Absolutely licensed/proprietary code.
Monopoly with low quality of code. On a device which requires high quality and efficient code, they fail since there is Symbian, Maemo Apple etc. there.
On Desktop, inefficient code and security issues can be fixed with high speed cpu and security software. On devices, device needs reboot middle of a phone call or has comical battery life. The king on current smart phones is Apple, there is also RIM (Java, imagine!), Nokia (Symbian was developed for mobile) and Google giant. MS enjoys (!) the fact that they have to compete and they really think people like Windows. They don't. It is some de-facto reality rather than choice.
Windows "Phone" shows where MS would be today if they didn't have an illegal monopoly on PC Desktop. They think people love and trust to Windows brand and would use it if they have been given a real chance to choose.
On the other hand, Symbian, iPhone OS (post 2.x) and various Linux based platforms and even ARM (CPU) itself enjoys the popularity which would occur on x86 Desktop if MS/Intel/IBM gang didn't exist. It is like the 80s home computer wars and it is fun to watch how amazing things come from competition.
I guess it is Ballmer who insist on Windows name as you would expect from him. Most of people I know says "Windows desktop is really enough from 9 to 5, don't even think I can stand to it in my personal life when I got chance to choose."
Interestingly, all the issues you have exists on a typical Desktop/Laptop. Especially sound card and Wi-Fi. I guess the issue with OpenSolaris is the company and its culture. Sun is a company who makes gigantic servers having insane amounts of uptime and most of their products (except couple of workstations) doesn't even have the parts like sound card or wifi.
A good example is Java, for a decade, people using Java plugin had to deal with their hard disk going nuts right after running a basic applet. What did they (finally!) do? A simple, 1 MB application running in low priority that caches most used classes. Problem instantly got fixed. Same guys, while fixing that issue, had the marvelous idea of adding something to startup to check for java updates, running 24/7. That is PR suicide on Windows land, that is one thing users hate more than a virus. Of course, they are disconnected from average desktop user so they thought it won't bother. It didn't change the mind of thousands to flame them. They could, use Apple's method of using system's own scheduler on Windows (for software update) and get away with it.
I really think it is a culture problem for Sun, they should really get rid of "lets go big on desktop" mad idea and fix their already problematic products like Desktop Java, Open Office. They could start with taking over OS X Java development from Apple, Apple clearly doesn't care and doesn't bother at all. Open Office? They managed to copy MS Office with all its problems in open source. I remember what a great thing it was while it was Star Office. It is like, they code it in a way that everyone has a Solaris Workstation with 4GB of RAM.
Flash basically runs everywhere where it is allowed (not iphone) and feasible to code for, it is just you and others who are so cool to disable it.
DirectX on the other hand, is chosen to run on Windows by its vendor itself. Not just Windows, in case of DirectX 11, it will only run on Windows 7.
There is a technology/plugin which runs on both Windows and Mac (which means 98% of coverage) and can use both OpenGL and DirectX, has professional application support. Shockwave of course. Is Adobe pushing it enough? Do they release a light, linux version? Of course they are Adobe and they don't.
When I saw a MS developer who is very high level actually tell how great h264 is on slashdot, I said "this is it, h264 will stay."
"Even" MS and Real Networks have decided H264 is the codec. "real video", or "silverlight" is actually h264/aac(+) most of the time. Apple, who is a huge media empire always sticked with standards and proprietary or not, mpeg4 is a damn big standard which entire globe has agreed on.
They should have really consulted with a media professional or academic about the reasons of mass h264/mp4 adoption.
FSF and free/open source doesn't give any kind of trust either. One day, they wake up, they think Cocoa/64bit is cool and drop support from OS X Tiger (10.4) while Apple, the company making money from OS/hardware upgrades keeps supporting OS X Tiger in sync with the higher versions.
It has a deeper reason, I heard, it is about threads and not being able to "destroy" them but the image they give to ordinary user and some professionals is: Once something new/cool ships, we abandon you and you won't have a word to say since it is free. I know it really sounds immature but people really started to think that way.
As Mac trolls which they unfortunately took serious have give them enough damage, I won't name the media player project.
There is a thing about transcoding. You can't effectively (in terms of professionalism) transcode from lossy to lossy. Well you can but, people won't buy it. H264 took off when everyone got convinced "This is it for next 10 years and it can be extended.". Implementing a new codec is really expensive, time taking. Of course, container may change, like it changed from FLV to HTML5 on Youtube. If you ask me, the real container which deserved to be standard was Quicktime but because of Apple's mistakes, it didn't take off.
Encoding millions of hours again with some Google backed codec (and clearly doesn't have support of ATSC/EBU) and waiting for customers of hardware (chip) vendors to replace tens of millions of boxes while _they already paid_ for h264 is a bit utopic.
Apple is the company which its founder/CEO, SJobs took time at his stage and explain how lovely and scalable it is. One of the rare times he didn't add any marketing, H264 really scales well and scalability is the key for future. They are (as a huge, overlooked media empire) one of the primary backers of H264.
If you check the size of h264/mp4 SP implemented devices, Android, iPad, iPod like "trendy" new stuff is a drop in the ocean.
Companies who actually broadcasts and sells content looks for the size of the market, the share of the market and yes, in that case non smart phones (billions!) are also mattering with the advent of 3G and even EDGE.
Lets say, if you invent a codec which will effectively erase h264 in terms of quality&bandwidth, h264/mp4 and even mpeg-2 will still stay since that device in your hand and connected device to your TV has some kind of impossible to replace chip.
I think FSF and "Free codec" thinks everyone uses the latest device/trendy PC and somehow, Google will magically add VP8 to it. How? They don't even see the real magic thing about H264, it is scalability and compatibility. Most of "Real is spyware" trolls or "MS is dying" people doesn't know it but... H264 and AAC(+) is the first time the entire industry agreed on a single codec. Device manufacturers, software vendors, chip manufacturers, cell phone manufacturers have all said "OK, regardless of our evil World domination plans, there is nothing that can match H264".
For the first time in media history, Real, MS, Satellite Boxes, Apple, Cell phones, Media devices, Blu Ray are all using the very same codec with little difference which makes it extremely easy and cheap for the actual content creators. When a TV professional hears about Linux, he pictures a Da Vinci box (lovely thing based on Linux), not the 1% Desktop... Thanks to iPhone/iPod and actually rising market share, Apple matters but Apple has already decided back when nobody except media professionals and codec nerds knew about it. It is H264.
Of course; If you consider people thinking "Hopefully, my browser won't hit google analytics after this donation.", perhaps Google's PR problem is deeper. I am personally amazed that they didn't donate a single cent before.
On OS X, user launches Activity Monitor, sees "Active" "Inactive" "Used" and "Free". All marked with easy to understand colours like red/green/yellow.
Windows user (including me, when I first saw Vista) sees something horrifying like "8MB" of Free RAM. If he/she doesn't know the very complex inner workings and strategy of OS, he will sure say "OMG damn memory wasting OS".
If a person monitoring his OS one way or another since 1980s get tricked by that "Free RAM" indicator, you can imagine the rest. It is the choice of words/layout.
Also that real stupid, lame and archaic "page file reserve" system. MS had a really good explanation to debunk thousands of old pages claiming user will have better performance if he sets a dedicated page file (usually gigantic) and we were all convinced. What happened and why do they actually do it in core OS level now? Fragmentation of a file which already carries random data at random pointers is an issue now?
I was expecting a real game changer, something using an exclusive technology like e-ink/lcd hybrid which is also manufactured cheaply to end the division.
There is nothing as "free", especially on Internet. There is always a hidden cost. I am not saying "Google is evil", I just say nothing is free and one should always consider this before making arrangements.
I can't really believe a prestigious university like Yale or any other university can't really fix things themselves. Really mysterious to begin with... OK; 40 MB is stupid because e-mail isn't used in its original intent anymore... Why not fix it instead of handing the entire thing to Google?
Yale is internationally known for their law school... That is the funniest part when you know gmail isn't really that "free" if you actually think about the rights you give to Google and your private mail.
Don't they have a CS department? You know most of the UNIX tools which are in use are actually invented/developed by the students studying in that particular university.
A prestigious university like Yale can't implement their own webmail/imap system and relies on Google handing all the student data at first place. Hopefully they didn't pay for such an unjustified publicity boost for Google.
I am afraid the entire business model of them are based on the fact that people doesn't read. It is just like spyware (oh sorry, potentially unwanted software!) company who relies on a huge EULA which people will just click "I agree" before it is rendered on screen.
Their bread and butter is petabytes of personal information, if they really harvest it for their lame/uncontrolled ads, it is the good scenario. If they have another plan, it is even worse.
The entire income of mainstream media and some popular blogs relies on Google/Doubleclick duopoly. If there is something really wrong going on, you won't be able to hear about it anyway...
Stop exaggerating it, Google is the company who has no respect to user privacy and run by some CEO having childish comments like "if you got something to hide".
I don't use a so called free mail to analyze my personal mails to show me ads, I don't post my location to web, I don't use a search engine which defaults to "on" for search history. I still use the Internet, Web. I just have brain to choose a set of services which suits to my needs without selling off my personal life.
What is the difference between a Google fan and a person thinks "Internet" is MS IE just because it appears on Start Menu that way?
Nokia which is generally ignored by American public/tech community is testing such "inventions" for years in a real beta form. This far, and let me remind you, Nokia doesn't really make anyone paranoid as Google, nothing they tried has taken off although they have very clever touches for privacy and human emotions.
I have installed Google Maps V4 for Symbian S60V3 having "buzz", all the feedback I checked was people who got seriously alerted about their privacy after they posted "buzz" for testing. People having facebook accounts, tweets everything they do got alerted. Not really tin foil heads like Google CEO suggested.
I somehow find it hard to believe that last.fm , owned by CBS and charging their users doesn't already pay to WB. Or, spotify and pandora which are backed by huge venture capitalists. last.fm even pays per each user listening the entire song.
Also, these sites/services have reached to a popularity that, it is up to WB to beg for more spotlight. If they really think streaming to general public and let me remind you, paying for content public hurts their business... Well, they will be out of business soon with such thinking. If I was a shareholder or artist, I would look for a different company.
Funny thing is, they don't see that in 2-3 years, the entire industry will shift to streaming rather than "sell mp3 files" model.
Are you insane? Did you even browse Facebook pages? If you have anything regarding privacy in your mind, you don't join such networks to begin with...
It is a network requiring your REAL NAME, people share their private matters on their publicly available pages no matter how hard Facebook tries to educate them or force them to set their options.
It is not for your taste if you have concerns about sharing your private information. Not mine either but I don't swear at them, I just pity the 2010's sense of privacy.
Jabber/XMPP is designed in a way that no "central big company" server would be required, just like e-mail. You sound like people not choosing from thousands of free/paid IMAP/POP3/WWW mail servers and whine about gmail's horrible privacy issues. Don't like it? Use something else.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the contractor/gray PR company who is involved in spamming all web 2.0 sites also have idling slashdot mod accounts and modding down all the messages comes with the price.
MS can't admit their huge mistakes like Nokia did and they think, polishing the clunky UI, bribing IT departments and abusing sites will "fix" the situation.
Unfortunately, it may work.
Any device which you can install general purpose software (including deep, kernel level things on Symbian) and multi task is a smart phone.
If a future Symbian^3 or ^4 device does come with sub $100 price tag can do whatever my Nokia E71 can do, pity for me, I hurried. It doesn't change the fact that an army (100M+ devices/year) of devices, coming with Qt 4.x+ is on the way and if you are a developer who dismisses this _fact_ just because it isn't mentioned on your trendy web 2.0 sites, you are really missing something.
Barebones basic (and cheap!) device running a multi tasking/modern/qt based OS is a damn big deal, it can compare to Apple's situation when first OEM PC with Microsoft DOS shipped. We have all seen what happened later.
Unless IT guys get bribed by MS or they are plain stupid/ignorant, there are very very good solutions to access Exhange/MS servers on Blackberry and Symbian. In fact, Symbian ones come free in general.
Of course, having met a "Windows server" admin lately, I am not sure how will that idiot who recently forced an entire office to XP Pro from XP Home because he misunderstood a KB article will look for such solutions.
RIM enjoys a similar ignorance too, it is not widely known that most Symbian phones will happily logon to their infrastructure mostly for free. I am not talking about some garage software which uses reverse engineered things. Absolutely licensed/proprietary code.
Monopoly with low quality of code. On a device which requires high quality and efficient code, they fail since there is Symbian, Maemo Apple etc. there.
On Desktop, inefficient code and security issues can be fixed with high speed cpu and security software. On devices, device needs reboot middle of a phone call or has comical battery life. The king on current smart phones is Apple, there is also RIM (Java, imagine!), Nokia (Symbian was developed for mobile) and Google giant. MS enjoys (!) the fact that they have to compete and they really think people like Windows. They don't. It is some de-facto reality rather than choice.
Windows "Phone" shows where MS would be today if they didn't have an illegal monopoly on PC Desktop. They think people love and trust to Windows brand and would use it if they have been given a real chance to choose.
On the other hand, Symbian, iPhone OS (post 2.x) and various Linux based platforms and even ARM (CPU) itself enjoys the popularity which would occur on x86 Desktop if MS/Intel/IBM gang didn't exist. It is like the 80s home computer wars and it is fun to watch how amazing things come from competition.
I guess it is Ballmer who insist on Windows name as you would expect from him. Most of people I know says "Windows desktop is really enough from 9 to 5, don't even think I can stand to it in my personal life when I got chance to choose."
Interestingly, all the issues you have exists on a typical Desktop/Laptop. Especially sound card and Wi-Fi. I guess the issue with OpenSolaris is the company and its culture. Sun is a company who makes gigantic servers having insane amounts of uptime and most of their products (except couple of workstations) doesn't even have the parts like sound card or wifi.
A good example is Java, for a decade, people using Java plugin had to deal with their hard disk going nuts right after running a basic applet. What did they (finally!) do? A simple, 1 MB application running in low priority that caches most used classes. Problem instantly got fixed. Same guys, while fixing that issue, had the marvelous idea of adding something to startup to check for java updates, running 24/7. That is PR suicide on Windows land, that is one thing users hate more than a virus. Of course, they are disconnected from average desktop user so they thought it won't bother. It didn't change the mind of thousands to flame them. They could, use Apple's method of using system's own scheduler on Windows (for software update) and get away with it.
I really think it is a culture problem for Sun, they should really get rid of "lets go big on desktop" mad idea and fix their already problematic products like Desktop Java, Open Office. They could start with taking over OS X Java development from Apple, Apple clearly doesn't care and doesn't bother at all. Open Office? They managed to copy MS Office with all its problems in open source. I remember what a great thing it was while it was Star Office. It is like, they code it in a way that everyone has a Solaris Workstation with 4GB of RAM.
When will open source folks understand that older version support, especially for server oriented things is a big deal?
There is a company who makes living with OS upgrades/sales and they still release updates for Windows XP you know. An OS from 2003 or something.
Right, they don't release directx 11 for XP but at least their consumers (and IT guys) don't feel abandoned in sense of security updates.
Same mistake is being done almost monthly in open source scene and they wonder why companies choose a $2K price instead of their "free" product.
Flash basically runs everywhere where it is allowed (not iphone) and feasible to code for, it is just you and others who are so cool to disable it.
DirectX on the other hand, is chosen to run on Windows by its vendor itself. Not just Windows, in case of DirectX 11, it will only run on Windows 7.
There is a technology/plugin which runs on both Windows and Mac (which means 98% of coverage) and can use both OpenGL and DirectX, has professional application support. Shockwave of course. Is Adobe pushing it enough? Do they release a light, linux version? Of course they are Adobe and they don't.
When I saw a MS developer who is very high level actually tell how great h264 is on slashdot, I said "this is it, h264 will stay."
"Even" MS and Real Networks have decided H264 is the codec. "real video", or "silverlight" is actually h264/aac(+) most of the time. Apple, who is a huge media empire always sticked with standards and proprietary or not, mpeg4 is a damn big standard which entire globe has agreed on.
They should have really consulted with a media professional or academic about the reasons of mass h264/mp4 adoption.
FSF and free/open source doesn't give any kind of trust either. One day, they wake up, they think Cocoa/64bit is cool and drop support from OS X Tiger (10.4) while Apple, the company making money from OS/hardware upgrades keeps supporting OS X Tiger in sync with the higher versions.
It has a deeper reason, I heard, it is about threads and not being able to "destroy" them but the image they give to ordinary user and some professionals is: Once something new/cool ships, we abandon you and you won't have a word to say since it is free. I know it really sounds immature but people really started to think that way.
As Mac trolls which they unfortunately took serious have give them enough damage, I won't name the media player project.
There is a thing about transcoding. You can't effectively (in terms of professionalism) transcode from lossy to lossy. Well you can but, people won't buy it. H264 took off when everyone got convinced "This is it for next 10 years and it can be extended.". Implementing a new codec is really expensive, time taking. Of course, container may change, like it changed from FLV to HTML5 on Youtube. If you ask me, the real container which deserved to be standard was Quicktime but because of Apple's mistakes, it didn't take off.
Encoding millions of hours again with some Google backed codec (and clearly doesn't have support of ATSC/EBU) and waiting for customers of hardware (chip) vendors to replace tens of millions of boxes while _they already paid_ for h264 is a bit utopic.
Apple is the company which its founder/CEO, SJobs took time at his stage and explain how lovely and scalable it is. One of the rare times he didn't add any marketing, H264 really scales well and scalability is the key for future. They are (as a huge, overlooked media empire) one of the primary backers of H264.
If you check the size of h264/mp4 SP implemented devices, Android, iPad, iPod like "trendy" new stuff is a drop in the ocean.
Companies who actually broadcasts and sells content looks for the size of the market, the share of the market and yes, in that case non smart phones (billions!) are also mattering with the advent of 3G and even EDGE.
Lets say, if you invent a codec which will effectively erase h264 in terms of quality&bandwidth, h264/mp4 and even mpeg-2 will still stay since that device in your hand and connected device to your TV has some kind of impossible to replace chip.
I think FSF and "Free codec" thinks everyone uses the latest device/trendy PC and somehow, Google will magically add VP8 to it. How? They don't even see the real magic thing about H264, it is scalability and compatibility. Most of "Real is spyware" trolls or "MS is dying" people doesn't know it but... H264 and AAC(+) is the first time the entire industry agreed on a single codec. Device manufacturers, software vendors, chip manufacturers, cell phone manufacturers have all said "OK, regardless of our evil World domination plans, there is nothing that can match H264".
For the first time in media history, Real, MS, Satellite Boxes, Apple, Cell phones, Media devices, Blu Ray are all using the very same codec with little difference which makes it extremely easy and cheap for the actual content creators. When a TV professional hears about Linux, he pictures a Da Vinci box (lovely thing based on Linux), not the 1% Desktop... Thanks to iPhone/iPod and actually rising market share, Apple matters but Apple has already decided back when nobody except media professionals and codec nerds knew about it. It is H264.
As far as I know, Yahoo maintains a large set of Wikipedia servers all for free without strings attached.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_hosting
Yahoo has an amazing PR problem, for sure.
Of course; If you consider people thinking "Hopefully, my browser won't hit google analytics after this donation.", perhaps Google's PR problem is deeper. I am personally amazed that they didn't donate a single cent before.
On OS X, user launches Activity Monitor, sees "Active" "Inactive" "Used" and "Free". All marked with easy to understand colours like red/green/yellow.
Windows user (including me, when I first saw Vista) sees something horrifying like "8MB" of Free RAM. If he/she doesn't know the very complex inner workings and strategy of OS, he will sure say "OMG damn memory wasting OS".
If a person monitoring his OS one way or another since 1980s get tricked by that "Free RAM" indicator, you can imagine the rest. It is the choice of words/layout.
Also that real stupid, lame and archaic "page file reserve" system. MS had a really good explanation to debunk thousands of old pages claiming user will have better performance if he sets a dedicated page file (usually gigantic) and we were all convinced. What happened and why do they actually do it in core OS level now? Fragmentation of a file which already carries random data at random pointers is an issue now?
I was expecting a real game changer, something using an exclusive technology like e-ink/lcd hybrid which is also manufactured cheaply to end the division.
They sticked with conventional LCD. Fine... Why didn't they at least implement Dolby lab's Dolby Vision? http://www.dolby.com/professional/technology/home-theater/dolby-vision.html
There is nothing as "free", especially on Internet. There is always a hidden cost. I am not saying "Google is evil", I just say nothing is free and one should always consider this before making arrangements.
I can't really believe a prestigious university like Yale or any other university can't really fix things themselves. Really mysterious to begin with... OK; 40 MB is stupid because e-mail isn't used in its original intent anymore... Why not fix it instead of handing the entire thing to Google?
Yale is internationally known for their law school... That is the funniest part when you know gmail isn't really that "free" if you actually think about the rights you give to Google and your private mail.
Don't they have a CS department? You know most of the UNIX tools which are in use are actually invented/developed by the students studying in that particular university.
A prestigious university like Yale can't implement their own webmail/imap system and relies on Google handing all the student data at first place. Hopefully they didn't pay for such an unjustified publicity boost for Google.
I am afraid the entire business model of them are based on the fact that people doesn't read. It is just like spyware (oh sorry, potentially unwanted software!) company who relies on a huge EULA which people will just click "I agree" before it is rendered on screen.
Their bread and butter is petabytes of personal information, if they really harvest it for their lame/uncontrolled ads, it is the good scenario. If they have another plan, it is even worse.
The entire income of mainstream media and some popular blogs relies on Google/Doubleclick duopoly. If there is something really wrong going on, you won't be able to hear about it anyway...
Stop exaggerating it, Google is the company who has no respect to user privacy and run by some CEO having childish comments like "if you got something to hide".
I don't use a so called free mail to analyze my personal mails to show me ads, I don't post my location to web, I don't use a search engine which defaults to "on" for search history. I still use the Internet, Web. I just have brain to choose a set of services which suits to my needs without selling off my personal life.
What is the difference between a Google fan and a person thinks "Internet" is MS IE just because it appears on Start Menu that way?
Nokia which is generally ignored by American public/tech community is testing such "inventions" for years in a real beta form. This far, and let me remind you, Nokia doesn't really make anyone paranoid as Google, nothing they tried has taken off although they have very clever touches for privacy and human emotions.
For example, their IM app (beta, real beta!) has ability to show generic names for your position only to your friends. Even that thing (like @cafe) bothered people. http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/7637_Nokia_Chat-IM_with_location_fe.php
I have installed Google Maps V4 for Symbian S60V3 having "buzz", all the feedback I checked was people who got seriously alerted about their privacy after they posted "buzz" for testing. People having facebook accounts, tweets everything they do got alerted. Not really tin foil heads like Google CEO suggested.
Why does an international service company require NSA clearance unless it serves to some American intelligence purpose and/or holds American secrets?
I somehow find it hard to believe that last.fm , owned by CBS and charging their users doesn't already pay to WB. Or, spotify and pandora which are backed by huge venture capitalists. last.fm even pays per each user listening the entire song.
Also, these sites/services have reached to a popularity that, it is up to WB to beg for more spotlight. If they really think streaming to general public and let me remind you, paying for content public hurts their business... Well, they will be out of business soon with such thinking. If I was a shareholder or artist, I would look for a different company.
Funny thing is, they don't see that in 2-3 years, the entire industry will shift to streaming rather than "sell mp3 files" model.
IMAP and IMAP integrated Webmails like fastmail.fm exist for ages... Please, stop this idiocy... At least on Slashdot!
Are you insane? Did you even browse Facebook pages? If you have anything regarding privacy in your mind, you don't join such networks to begin with...
It is a network requiring your REAL NAME, people share their private matters on their publicly available pages no matter how hard Facebook tries to educate them or force them to set their options.
It is not for your taste if you have concerns about sharing your private information. Not mine either but I don't swear at them, I just pity the 2010's sense of privacy.
Jabber/XMPP is designed in a way that no "central big company" server would be required, just like e-mail. You sound like people not choosing from thousands of free/paid IMAP/POP3/WWW mail servers and whine about gmail's horrible privacy issues. Don't like it? Use something else.