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Google, Yahoo! and MySpace recently announced that they have teamed up to create the Open Social Foundation which is a non-profit foundation supporting the OpenSocial initiative. This group was formed to encourage open governance of the OpenSocial specifications.
The main reason behind the formation of this group was to create a universal standard so that the developers can use OpenSocial for creating new applications on social-networking sites across the web. It also aims to establish intellectual property guidelines around applications.
Google's OpenSocial platform got significant new support now and is looking forward to solidify the future of the platform by encouraging community interaction. The OpenSocial Foundation will have its own intellectual property and governance policies and will serve as an independent entity.
"OpenSocial has been a community-driven specification from the beginning," said Joe Kraus, Director of product management, Google.
The announcement also says that, the teams from Google, Yahoo, and MySpace have summed up the initial plans for the OpenSocial Foundation. An early framework is already available at OpenSocial.org, which is an official home for the OpenSocial specifications. This foundation will act as a resource hub and communication portal for the developer communities. Related assets are expected to be in place by July.
Steve Pearman, vice president of product strategy, MySpace, stated that, "Company has always been about openness by enabling users to do what they want to do."
Other details from the announcement are -
- All specifications are available under a Creative Commons license.
- Opensocial.org will be the new official home for OpenSocial specifications and developer community.
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The foundation will serve as an independent entity and will maintain its own formal intellectual property
and governance framework.
- The OpenSocial Foundation Proposal aims at ensuring a transparent and open development of the
OpenSocial initiative and its related intellectual property.
- The intent agreement of OpenSocial Foundation is shared in public also.
- Committed to the development of Shindig open source reference implementation.
- Developer community will always be encouraged to communicate with the OpenSocial Foundation.
Google's statistics show that around 200 million users use OpenSocial applications while interacting in social networks like Engage.com, Friendster, LinkedIn, Six Apart, and many more. This new nonprofit organization was designed to provide social network application development standards and is expected to be formed within the next 90 days. Also more number of OpenSocial partners are expected to join this organization in addition to the three big giants responsible for the announcement.
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