Let's start by asking nicely. I ask the autonomo.us leadership to join me in an experiment regarding Google Wave. The risks of this experiment are few, but the potential "upside" very large. In other words one could say the experiment is "worth a try".
Let's simply ask Google, in a formal way, to play nice and invest in freedom. The worst they can do is to say "no". I suggest that we ask Google for: 1. All the Wave source code, under a GPL-compatible free software license. 2. Liaison with the group of core Wave developers. 3. An understanding that our intent is to make a "friendly fork" - a fork characterized by bi-directional patch sharing and the goal of maintaining compatibility. At the same time, our fork becomes a "second supplier" of Wave technology, viable on its own, and with an independent design effort. 4. Grant money. The initial purposes of this grant money are to fund the creation of a legal entity to receive it (e.g., but not necessarily, autonomo.us as an NPO), to substantially help cover the (likely small) administrative costs of that legal entity for 2 years, and to staff the organization with - let's say - 3 full time programmers for two years, 2 F.T.Es in commissioned work, and 2 F.T.Es for executive positions. The range here is low-seven-figures over two years. I suggest that we offer Google: 1. Public acknowledgment and praise for taking such a step. 2. A strong intent (not obligation) to keep the fork "friendly" - to work with the Wave developers and try to keep in sync. 3. A commitment to spend the money for developers half of wave, and half on building free web services generally. This includes doubling down on the effort to simply think through what freedom respecting web services are and how they can work in the market place. 4. Liaison with Google about "what we come up with" regarding the implementation and deployment of freedom respecting web services. A formal "ask" of Google could reasonably include some statements from autonomo.us folks about the mission, and some statements about a larger technical vision. (It's *not* ready yet but you can see first glimpses of the technical direction I think is wise at http://basiscraft.com/in-progress/w3os-index.xml ) -t _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.autonomo.us http://lists.autonomo.us/mailman/listinfo/discuss
