Whilst I can’t speak on behalf of Chris Saad – that’s your own personal issue – I can speak for the DataPortability Project as a co-founder and active participant.

As a community, we still have not formalised our organisation – or rather, we are evolving from our experiences to date. We are onto the finishing touches for a new governance model that will more clearly outlay how decisions get made, who can makes decisions, and embedding various processes for an effective workflow into the DNA of the organisation (accountability, milestones, ownership). As the chairperson of a foundation, you clearly would understand the challenges of managing an open community, let alone creating the foundations. .

So it’s unfortunate, that you choose to downplay recognition that we are genuinely trying and with that effort it will take us a long time. We are a baby – exactly that – and yet the criticism of the DataPortability Project has come from people that never fully supported the Project in the first place. I won’t go into details as that’s not my style, but to allude with “we joined, but now we leave in disgust” is not reflective of what actually happened. It’s more like a ‘who the hell are you guys to get all this attention’ which evolved to ‘you don’t have the right’ to now which is ‘you are no longer relevant because you haven’t produced anything’. Whilst the cricitism is nothing new, and in fact welcome as we can learn from it, I fear these comments are affecting future participants, which will kill our organisation when we are still trying to learn how to walk. In some cases, they are mispresenting what we aim to do.

Like I did with Eran, I am more than happy to have you blast your issues with me over the phone and I will listen. I will transcribe what you state, and then come to a resolution on what you think we need to do – and engage the DataPortability community to provide answers and come to consensus. But other than that, there is not much we as an organisation can do – certainly, us being irrelevant to you doesn’t mean it is for others. I work 50 hours a week in financial services (albeit in technology) – DataPortability is my hobby as it is with all the other contributors. I can’t promise immediate results, but I can guarantee that I will honour my commitments for improvement and responding to your views.

You should continue to focus your efforts on where you can make the most impact. But rather than write us off, recognise I want the same things as you do. The negative energy in criticism is depressing if it’s not constructive; I’d love to see more syncronised thinking so we can pursue the vision of an open web together.

Further, I think the expectations on the DataPortability Project are a little unfair. Cutting some code was never our goal so I am not sure what people are expecting to see of the Project, and just doing that, doesn’t mean we achieve what we set out for. The entire web industry frustrates me in that it is so developer-centric. We’ve seen a lot of innovation with web development, but I can’t say we’ve seen much development in the business sense (unless you call an acquisition success). The biggest contribution DataPortability can make is not code, but awareness – education, understanding, advocacy.

We have always been about evangelising existing efforts, and people cannot doubt we haven’t raised awareness in the industry to a different level. To be criticised for all this talk, is just plain silly. The question I ask, if people think we have failed – then what exactly was it you thought we were meant to deliver (growing pains aside)?

“Data Portability is about APML riding along with the rest of the well-known and established Open Web protocols.”

Let us not forget that RSS, OpenID, and other technologies of the like were once in the same exact position APML is today – widely unestablished and widely unsupported. To write off a certain technology simply because “it’s new” isn’t, in my opinion, a valid reason. Imagine if RSS was originally bashed to the point of abandonment back in 1999!

I remember myself bashing both RSS and OpenID initially because I couldn’t see the value they would bring to me. Now, I use both everyday like second nature.

If someone has had success with APML in achieving some sort of portable data success, I’d love to hear about it. If someone has had success with some technology most have never heard of – I’d like to hear about that as well. I see no harm in DataPortability SUGGESTING a stack of technologies (including APML) that could prove useful to implementers.

I’m aware this is only one small facet of your gripe with DataPortability, but one I felt should be contested nonetheless.

Just a few thoughts.

Cheers,

Tim

I’ve only paid the DP site and associated blog passing attention because it always seems to be fluff. I love videos, they look great, but cool motion graphics are not the type of forward movement the citizens of the web need. And I say that as a design junkie that enjoys a bit of eye candy with his hype now and again.

It is unfortunate that DP is going no where fast, and it is a little sad that it is likely impossible to turn it around. DP showed a lot of energy and enthusiasm early on and could have helped mobilize the more general public, raising awareness and shifting perception. That’s not what happened — at least not in a good way.

The important thing is to keep the focus on the real progress that has been made by the loosely joined communities and hard-working few that have inspired forward progress through careful thought and actual code.

There are lots of great people involved with Dataportability.org – like Daniela Barbosa and Phil Wolff. The mail list is compelling – but calling Chris Saad’s link blog the DP.org blog is yet another example that DP.org is Chris personal playpen and is all about promoting Chris and APML.

Well that’s simple ot seal with.

Goodbye Chris. Goodbye APML.

Hello Open Web