Comment by Marco Alka on "Can open source software and community funding change privacy issues of modern age?"

So first steps should be email client and free email service like Gmail, and maybe social network

Well, as for email, I would never entrust my mail to a FOSS mail provider, as security is complex and hard to do right and uptime can be quite critical. FOSS developers usually do neither have time, nor money, to spend on those. I would welcome a company going opensource, however! At the moment, I go with a FOSS client plus a commercial mail provider (I pay money directly). As for the social network, have you ever heard of Diaspora? It is a distributed social network.

What do you think?

I think, your ambitions are admirable, however there already are projects like that and you just have to google a bit to find them. Take a look at them, first, because it makes a lot more sense to contribute to existing projects, if they suite your needs.

Thank your for answer. I understand your concerns. But these services would be for mainstream people who don't know or care what mail server is. I heard of Diaspora, and it is great and ambitious project, I like it. But core part of my idea is that everything should be under the same brand, and connected somehow. Just like Google connects their services. People care about brands and are more willing to use something if they have perception that brand is huge and care about quality. There are a lot of services that are free and use open source software, but whole open source market is very heterogeneous to be attractive to average users. I think for most people it's much easier to care and trust the brand, not random developers (although it shouldn't be like that). You know what I mean?

I didn't say I would start it, I just want a good discussion about this, and maybe spread the idea around to much smarter people.

@IvanBernatovic ok, I get what you want to say. So your idea is to rather "re-brand" and mix together FOSS in order to create a consistent look&feel and a central hub under one name which revolves around ease-of-use for your average user. Correct?

Using that as a base idea, the development effort might be considerably smaller but that does not remove the problem that many FOSS developers contribute after work as a hobby. There is still the lack of time and initial money to get things up and running and implement adequate monitoring, support and security. How would you get around that?

Yes, exactly that.

I don't have exact plan for that. I hoped more people would be involved in this discussion, proposing ideas and plans. There are organizations that are non profit and are providing free services, like Wikimedia and Linux Foundations. So it's possible. I guess in the beginning only core developers would be involved, implementing only smaller services. It is risky of course, but I think it's worth the shot. First steps are to gather core people, create few core services and create a brand (name, logo, core visual identity, slogan etc.). After that start marketing initiative, maybe start Kickstarter campaign, create Patreon account, open donations, start looking for funds from various organizations that care about freedom of speech, privacy, transparency and right to know. Also, in terms of revenue I'm not against ads, as long users know for sure how their data is used exactly.

@IvanBernatovic Finding contributors is very hard. I certainly would have been interested in aiding you. However, at the moment, I just do not have the time to contribute code or lengthy RFCs or do any research in that general direction.

That's why I recommend

creating a Github org
creating a RFC repository
researching how to set up the core (something, which glues together all parts, like making everything a SHPS plugin)
researching core services which have to be implemented first
researching where to host
creating cost analysis etc.
pushing all that knowledge into the RFC repo

Having something will encourage people to discuss more and maybe implement something. Starting by zero... is hard

I know, I agree. I'll work on this idea and I'll try to be more specific. Right now I'll wait to see what people think of this post. I put it on Reddit and Twitter, too. Thanks for help, I'll keep you updated if I have more info.

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