- From: hellekin <how@zoethical.com>
- Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2022 09:33:51 +0100
- To: public-interop-remedies@w3.org
On 2/9/22 3:14 PM, Cory Doctorow wrote: > > Rather than mandating that companies must adopt the standard, the acts > could specify that dominant companies must offer an interface that > *satisfies the requirements*. > There are a number of things to make clear: - define 'dominant companies' -- a lot of them will try and figure out a way to play underdog - define the requirements -- it may be difficult to find a one-size-fits-all list of requirements > > As part of this obligation, any firm that offered its own API could be > mandated to offer a FLOSS reference implementation of a library for > interacting with it. > This I find difficult to support, because it puts the burden on the smaller actors again. Let me explain. It sounds a bit like ToS;DR: the approach chosen by ToS;DR is to scrape all companies' terms of service pages and watch for change. One part of the work is to analyze the ToS and classify them on a scale of acceptability. This is very intensive work that only bubbles up with more companies to watch. Another, simpler approach, would be to declare a set of wanted features, and group them into a charter. Such a charter would make it very easy on everyone: users, lawyers, enforcers, and good-willing companies. People would have a single text to read, and could even have a plugin telling them whether a service complies to what they consider the minimum set of features they want. Obviously, companies relying on deception would not be able to agree to such a charter as it would be dead easy to check for compliance. I think this kind of approach is to be preferred when trying to tackle such huge asymmetric power. If you put more burden on smaller players--as in: requiring them to implement ever-changing corporate interfaces--then you're on a wrong path for resolution. We must aim for less work, not more. Besides, there are side effects that are not easy to take into account. For example, when Google Reader was discontinued, how many people lost links? Sure, they could save an OPML file with all their feeds. But nobody could rewrite years of web linking to Google Reader, and those were lost; the network effect was lost. We must be wary of such side effects coming up, which are arguably unavoidable when you have so much content and relationships behind walled gardens. > I think a lot of the "standardization is bad for > innovation" critique is in bad faith and basically advances a > nihilistic, "Nothing can be done, this is as good as it gets" position > meant to create paralysis. > Sure, it's the same vein as 'free software is bad for business'. Cheers, == hk
Received on Thursday, 10 February 2022 08:34:07 UTC