Software Freedom in an Online World: Identity Management and Data and Service Portability on Social Networks using Drupal

SESSION OVERVIEW
As no-cost proprietary service providers on the internet proliferate and their adoption increases, it is important for Free Software advocates to understand the new challenges to Software Freedom. A background of the economic, social, privacy, and ethical issues will be given. Trends in Identity Management and Data Portability will be described to explain what is happening and how to get involved with related Drupal modules.

TRACK
Community and Core

AGENDA
The issues of Software Freedom are changing as we move from using Free Software to using no-cost proprietary online services. We will review a variety of background issues.

• Economic Issues: fixed and variable costs, an economy of ownership vs. an economy of sharing
• Social and Privacy Issues: managing personal data, proprietary services as an extension of life in the virtual world
• Ethical Issues: social networks and EULA’s, the balance of power, examples

Then we will explore trends and recommendations in Identity Management and Identity Aggregation, Data Portability, Service Portability, and Free Community-Supported Services.

• Liberty Alliance, Shibboleth, SAML, OpenID
• Assertions about data ownership, privacy, and data portability
• http://www.dataportability.org, APML, microformats, RSS, RDF, OPML, OAuth, plus XFN, FOAF, SIOC, etc.
• Service Isolation, and the challenge of integration
• The imperative to develop a Free Software stack of virtual world services, and a pragmatic philosophy of coexistence and integration with proprietary services.
• http://www.shareduniverse.net - first identity aggregation, then service integration, then replacement of services with Free services

Finally, we will explore how Drupal can be at the center of solving these universal problems.

• Drupal Modules: Organic Groups (many modules), OpenID, Node Profile, etc.
• The implications for the spread of Drupal adoption and usage
• http://www.shareduniverse.net, a Free (community-supported) site aiming to implement a full stack of virtual world services on Drupal

GOALS
Participants in this session will be energized to assert and protect their rights and freedoms in an online world increasingly crowded with no-cost proprietary services. They will know what is happening to reverse this trend and how they can participate in it. They will also know what related Drupal modules they would want to get involved with.

RESOURCES
Look over http://www.dataportability.org, http://www.shareduniverse.net.

BIO

Stephen Adkins is the VP Technology for The Rubicon Group, co-chair of the Architecture Workgroup for the OpenTravel Alliance, member of the DataPortability Workgroup, founder of the SharedUniverse Project, and an advocate of Software Freedom and Free Software. More details can be seen at his online profile.

Mr. Adkins has BS and MS degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics from M.I.T., and an MBA from Georgetown University.
He lives currently in Marietta, Georgia (near Atlanta).