[Freedombox-discuss] objectives

[Bdale Garbee]

Catching up on recent list traffic, it's clear to me that we're
suffering from the fact that "freedombox" means so many different things
to different people.  As a member of the foundation's board and chair of
the technical advisory committee, I've spent a lot of time thinking
about what it is that we're actually trying to do, and pondering how to
get from where we are to a useful reference implementation.  To that
end, I think it's time to articulate a roadmap, starting with a
statement of objectives for the core that consolidates our shared values
and vision, and provides a framework for turning our is/is-not thinking
in to a manifest of software components to be included in a system
image. 

As my own thinking has evolved, I now believe we are pursuing two
related but different top-level objectives.  One derives from Eben's
early articulation of motivation that many of us responded to a year or
more ago, the other is driven largely by our collective reaction to
recent global circumstances.   

  We want to provide a way for people to share with others narrowly or
  broadly a set of thoughts and media objects hosted on infrastructure
  they own themselves and thus have ultimate control over, as an
  attractive alternative to such sharing via popular existing services 
  that provide little control.

  We want to provide a way for people to communicate with each other
  privately, minimizing their dependence on service providers, and
  hopefully providing some resiliency in the face of service outages.

I'd love feedback on whether that resonates well with others on the
list.  Do the things you care about fit in, or is there another major
objective that I'm missing? 

Bdale
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