[okfn-discuss] Wikipedia as SaaS by the OSSD?

[Mike Linksvayer]

On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 12:48 AM, Bastien <bzg at altern.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> (Let me know if this is not the right place to discuss this.)

I copied the Open Definition list since you mention stuff on the Open
Software Service Definition page (thanks to Everton for reminder to
not entirely rely on abbreviation. ;)) But at least until the OD group
figures out the disposition of the OSSD, the best place for in-depth
discussion about these topics is probably autonomous-discuss, also
copied.

> Wikipedia is mentioned as web service matching the Open Software
> Service Definition -- it's actually the only example of an OSS.
>
> Given the broad definition of the OSSD, this is correct... but a
> bit counterintuitive IMHO.
>
> 1) This broad definition does not match that of the FSF:
>
>    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html
>
>     "Software as a Service (SaaS) means that someone sets up a network
>     server that does certain computing tasks—running spreadsheets, word
>     processing, translating text into another language, etc."
>
>     Note that the central notion here is "computing tasks".  If there is
>     no computing (that you would normally do on your computer) then this
>     is not SaaS by the FSF definition.

The RMS definition hinges on whether someone else is doing "your
computing", and you shouldn't allow this. OSSD (and the complementary
Franklin Street Statement, which FSF associated people participated
in, and FSF hosted a meeting around; see the autonomo.us site) is
orthogonal. Whether someone else's computer is doing something
narrowly defined as your computing or not is not pertinent. Rather, is
the service publishing its source as free software/open source, and is
non-private data open knowledge?

> 2) If opendefinition sticks to this broad definition, maybe OD could add
>    another more intuitive example such as Kune?
>
>    http://kune.ourproject.org/faq/
>
>    Kune is using the (now free) Wave protocol to implement an interface
>    similar to the not-yet-free rizzoma.com and AFAIK matches OSSD.
>
> What do you think?

We could use more examples, but honestly I'm not sure anything
relating to Wave is intuitive for many people. And there's a
distinction between software which is amenable to powering an
OSSD-conformant service, and a service itself (eg
MediaWiki/Wikipedia). Maybe Kune.cc is OSSD-conformant; I haven't
looked closely.

We should probably move a lot of the non-definition stuff off
http://opendefinition.org/software-service/ into supplementary pages
or a wiki. For now I'd suggest adding info to
http://wiki.autonomo.us/Wish_list which may be the closest thing there
is (affiliated with the Franklin Street group mentioned above).

Mike