Can an Open Source world build a Not-For-Profit People's Social Network

Anil Dash is the latest to call for the service layer to be as failure proof as the infrastructure layer on the Internet, rather than be concentrated in a few companies (see Don't let Twitter, Facebook, Google be the only game in town) over here. He writes:

There's no reason that organizations or individuals who want to use the Web to relay critical information have to rely on Twitter or Facebook or Google or any other giant of the technology industry in the first place. We've just forgotten a bit about how the Internet was supposed to work.

Rescue organizations and charities should simply be able to use the Web sites they already have to deliver those messages.

And wasn't that the promise of the Web in the first place? Weren't we going to stop relying on individual companies as gatekeepers for communication? When blogs took off a few years ago, wasn't it with the promise that we'd all be able to share our voices without having to ask any company for permission? Why did we give that up?

So why can't we have Open Social Networks, like we have Open ISPs. Why can't I just pay an addendum to my ISP and get my SocNet stuff, which interfaces to your SocNet stuff over open standards? As Anil points out, we have been here before:

Ten years ago, otherwise-sensible companies were paying millions of dollars to America Online to buy "AOL keywords." These were shortcuts to parts of the AOL service, which dominated U.S. Internet access at the time. In fact, many of us have allowed companies to become intermediaries to all our communications, whether it was AOL 10 years ago or Facebook today.
.....

Think how ludicrous it would seem for someone to decide, say, to offer emergency services as an AOL keyword called "911" instead of having people just dial their phones?

Imagine having to have an address for my company - or myself - on Twitter, Facebook, Gmail etc. Ludicrous! His point as to the "why" they've stitched it up today applied to how it was done in the early days:

Maybe it's because they made it look so easy.

I think thats a big part - take any major Open Source project, what you will find is everyone likes to the interesting, fun stuff. No one likes to do the Nth iteration on the blah-button on page 234-b to get it working just that little bit better. Its a sad but true fact that Open Source User Experienes and Interfaces usually suck a lot more than commercial ones. It took quite a few years (it needed Mr Andreessen et al, not just Sir Tim) before even mainstream Geeks could run with the Open Internet.

Also, at 3am on a Sunday morning, Open Source guys by and large don't want to fix a bug in some sap's application becuase its gone doewn, Sh*tty jobs like that give no kudos. So O/S SLAs are crap, you either need to have in-house resource or have a big guy guarantee it (Linux only really took off when Red Hat etc.

But these are not insurmountable issues. Why can't an Open Source world build an Open Social Network for everyone to use? Its technically feasible, and imagind the benefits:

- Communications systems that favour open connections, not walled gardens
- Privacy rules that favour users, not advertisers and dataminers
- A rich application ecosystem

Can't be that hard - get an OS Social Media system, run it up on Amazon, get some NFP funding to pay people to run it and write a useable UI....

It could be a service that is as ubiquitous as email, you get it when you sign up to your ISP. You would pay for it as part of your monthly fee. In the early days it may be a Not-For-Profit that sets it up but you could soon federate/franchise it to other qualified bodies to run.