SharedUniverse : Project

The Mission of the SharedUniverse Project

  • The mission of the SharedUniverse project is to protect and enhance each person's Online Computing Freedom in the Virtual World.

What Problems Are We Trying to Solve?

  • Freedom: If we build the Virtual World infrastructure with Free Software, it will ensure the users' freedom (i.e. not locked-in to and constrained by a service provider to which he has entrusted all of his data). This becomes increasingly important as more and more of life's activities have a component in the online Virtual World.
  • Integration: As we become increasingly dependent on online virtual world services, it is not appropriate that those services should be segregated in silos of functionality provided by commercial service providers who are in competition with each other. The Virtual World is too important for that. Users will demand (and indeed they deserve) control over their data and integration of their services.

Our Strategy is Pragmatic and Incremental

  • Start with a Free Software base for a Content-Management and Community Management System (Drupal).
  • Implement identity aggregation tools to export and ensure free access to personal data currently stored in numerous service providers (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo!Mail, etc.) (see dataportability.org, and specifically, the GraphSync project)
  • Integrate existing partially-free virtual world services (i.e. Google, Yahoo, etc.).
  • Coordinate and integrate existing Free Software projects and their technologies to create a full stack of virtual world services built with Free Software. This will create Free alternatives to proprietary services where necessary and integration between them regardless.
  • Host them all in a Free (community supported) online virtual world, SharedUniverse.net, as a reference installation.

Join Us

What is the rationale for all of this? Read on ...

We are all affected by the Virtual World.

  • What do the following all have in common?
  • Group collaboration, perhaps using Google Groups, Yahoo Groups
  • E-mail, perhaps using GMail, YahooMail, Hotmail
  • Instant Messaging, perhaps using Skype, PidginIM, Google Chat, Jabber, Yahoo IM, AIM, MSN IM, ICQ, Meebo, Mebeam
  • Desktop sharing, perhaps using Webex, GoToMeeting, VNC
  • Social Networking, perhaps using Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Plaxo
  • SMS Text Messaging, perhaps using Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce
  • Telephone System Integration, perhaps using Jott, FreeConferenceCall.com
  • Blogging, perhaps using Blogger
  • 3-D Virtual Worlds, perhaps using SecondLife, Google Earth, There, Active Worlds, Kaneva, any number of MMORPG games: World of Warcraft, Runescape, etc.
  • Photo Sharing, perhaps using Flickr, Picasa
  • They are all virtual world services, and we are all becoming ever-increasingly dependent on them.

So, what if those websites started changing the implicit agreements about their use?

  • We need a Free Software stack that can provide these services. This preserves our Freedom and exerts influence on the partially free service providers to make their services increasingly free.

And when are they all going to be integrated?

  • Competing commercial entities will never integrate the online Virtual World for the public's benefit. This will only be done with a Free Software project.
The pages in this guide contain the philosophy, vision, guidelines, and requirements for the SharedUniverse online virtual world.
An Economy of Sharing ›