a mistake I made today at BarCamp

I’ve mostly been enjoying my BarCamp experience today, but I made a big mistake on my Open Services talk: I spoke of my motivations (in an attempt to help frame the group discussion) but instead of talking about my larger motivations (which is that I want to help frame the entire web’s discussion about internet services) I spoke about my immediate motivation (which is to help GNOME and RH figure out what to do with the online desktop.)

I’m afraid that trivialized the discussion, and as one person put it, ‘you’re getting us to do your homework for you.’ That wasn’t at all my intention- these were the first folks I’ve talked to extensively in person about the issue, and as a result it was quite productive, but my hope was primarily to discuss the issues and spark others to think about it- not to mooch off them. I hope that wasn’t how it came across, but I fear that is what happened.

mood: more mixed than I would have liked at this point.

5 thoughts on “a mistake I made today at BarCamp”

  1. Quite illuminating. I had thought all those ‘user generated’ FaceBook apps were actually hosted by/on FaceBook, but they aren’t. Which makes me even more leery of what those applications are doing with the data we’re giving them. hmmm Open Services Whereas Open Source / Free Software has defined freedoms surrounding source code, the next battleground on the freedom front are the services we use on the web. What does it mean for something to be an “Open Service”? Not sure why Luis thought he

  2. Quite illuminating. I had thought all those ‘user generated’ FaceBook apps were actually hosted by/on FaceBook, but they aren’t. Which makes me even more leery of what those applications are doing with the data we’re giving them. hmmmOpen ServicesWhereas Open Source / Free Software has defined freedoms surrounding source code, the next battleground on the freedom front are the services we use on the web. What does it mean for something to be an “Open Service”? Not sure why Luis thought he

  3. Quite illuminating. I had thought all those ‘user generated’ FaceBook apps were actually hosted by/on FaceBook, but they aren’t. Which makes me even more leery of what those applications are doing with the data we’re giving them. hmmmOpen ServicesWhereas Open Source / Free Software has defined freedoms surrounding source code, the next battleground on the freedom front are the services we use on the web. What does it mean for something to be an “Open Service”? Not sure why Luis thought he

  4. Luis, that was a joke! I think we all appreciate participating in the discussion. Most of would absolutely enjoy helping you with your homework.

    I do think that hoping for ‘open source code’ to be part of the ‘open service story’ is asking a bit much. Basically, it’s just not practical. I’d suggest focusing on the data itself.

  5. […] Patrick Mueller, and a couple others assured me that my concerns yesterday were overblown; I think maybe I’m just a little too sensitive to the balance of corporate and […]

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