Randomize

I’ve said may times that if we hope to save the Internet as a free and open resource, we need to democratize the server. Your “MySpace” really isn’t yours unless it’s running on your own hardware.

Opera Unite (http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2009/06/16/) is an application that claims to do just this–provide people an easy way to run a web server on their own machine, allowing them to install “services” on that server for chat, sharing photos, etc.

Here are my initial thoughts on Opera’s entry into this space…

Good

• MVC-like, JavaScript-based server platform. Great concept.
• No firewall configuration.
• Multi-platform, including a Mac version. Kudos.

Bad

• Services must be “approved” by Opera. People should be able to run whatever they want on their own server, thankyouverymuch. Starting off with an Apple App Store mentality is not a good way to attract developers to your platform. They are tired of share-cropping.
• Ignores every existing server platform/language (PHP, ASP.NET/MONO.NET, JSP, etc.) and creates yet another one. So, for instance, it would be impractical to repackage WordPress or PHPbb as installable “services”.
• Rather than using existing technology to punch holes in firewalls, uses a One Big Proxy Server apprach. This is the Achilles’ Heel: there is no freedom in a platform where a central authority controls hosting. I’m sure Opera feels they won’t to Evil Things and will protect free speech, but there is absolutely no reason anyone should believe they will be any better at it than anyone else in the space.**
  

** * No social networking or identity integration. No man is an island, and if your platform doesn’t start off with a baked-in foundation to link you to your friends, limit privacy by user, and authenticate users for sharing/comments/mail/etc., it’s going nowhere. No one is going to bookmark all of their friends’ individual Opera Unite sites, they want running streams of updates a la Twitter, Faceboook, etc. * Not easy enough. The whole thing still feels like setting up an FTP server or configuring a complex P2P program. It should be as easy as signing up for and adding apps to your Facebook. * No core data service. Individual services are left to their own devices to persist their data. This system needs something like CoreData provides on the iPhone, Gears provides on the browser to remote servers, and Facebook provides to app developers.

I realize this is an “alpha” release, but if Opera really wants to “reinvent the web,” they have a long road ahead of them.