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Except your argument doesn't work well because we're centralizing FOSS. (perhaps I am misunderstanding your argument?) So you still have linux, webkit, etc. Yo

Except your argument doesn't work well because we're centralizing FOSS. (perhaps I am misunderstanding your argument?) So you still have linux, webkit, etc. You just get linux nowadays via AWS, Linode, etc. And you get Webkit via Apple or Google. Its not one or the other. These two systems can work hand-in-hand. FOSS commingling with commercial centralization has been quite the success story. FOSS on its own as PoC's or nerd toys chatted about in IRC isn't enough to get real market penetration.

EGreg 11y ago
I don't see it that way. We don't get WebKit through Google and Apple. We get long tail contributions to the project: https://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus... What we have is centralization in phone manufacturers when it comes to Apple, but not Android. Google tried to re-centralize by making the Play Store but Amazon and others already forked Android. In fact, Chrome is a fork of WebKit which Apple started for Safari! And that is how we had such an acceleration of features. Open source and commercial competition. I don't deny FOSS commingles with commercial offerings. Rather I'm saying that when platforms became freely forkable, the quality AND the freedom rose dramatically. That has yet to happen in social -- as you say, Diaspora* didn't take off. But once there is a viable FOSS social tech platform, it will disrupt all the big players. Who needs http://twitter.com/MyBrand http://twitter.com/MyBrand when I can just add the Twitter module to mybrand.com ! You can also see the problems with Facebook campaigning for India to have a billion people have their internet signal go to Facebook's server farms. Besides state spy agencies, this is also simply bad engineering. Early internet apps like email worked even if email.com was down. I could use the local network. I think we will actually soon have software that runs on social mesh networks and that's going to enable everyone in the world to share files, communicate and collaborate faster and wasting less energy than going through a central hub. You'll see a re decentralization of the internet in the next several years.
- krakensden 11y ago
  There isn't much of a long tail to browser development these days, the build requirements are too crazy. And the identi.ca crowd has been around from the beginning, with no more uptake than they ever had.

EGreg 11y ago

I don't see it that way. We don't get WebKit through Google and Apple. We get long tail contributions to the project: https://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus... What we have is centralization in phone manufacturers when it comes to Apple, but not Android. Google tried to re-centralize by making the Play Store but Amazon and others already forked Android. In fact, Chrome is a fork of WebKit which Apple started for Safari! And that is how we had such an acceleration of features. Open source and commercial competition. I don't deny FOSS commingles with commercial offerings. Rather I'm saying that when platforms became freely forkable, the quality AND the freedom rose dramatically. That has yet to happen in social -- as you say, Diaspora* didn't take off. But once there is a viable FOSS social tech platform, it will disrupt all the big players. Who needs http://twitter.com/MyBrand http://twitter.com/MyBrand when I can just add the Twitter module to mybrand.com ! You can also see the problems with Facebook campaigning for India to have a billion people have their internet signal go to Facebook's server farms. Besides state spy agencies, this is also simply bad engineering. Early internet apps like email worked even if email.com was down. I could use the local network. I think we will actually soon have software that runs on social mesh networks and that's going to enable everyone in the world to share files, communicate and collaborate faster and wasting less energy than going through a central hub. You'll see a re decentralization of the internet in the next several years.

krakensden 11y ago
There isn't much of a long tail to browser development these days, the build requirements are too crazy. And the identi.ca crowd has been around from the beginning, with no more uptake than they ever had.