I read about the concept of static JavaScript apps in this Dropbox technote written by Victor Costan in August 2012. Here's the opening paragraph.

It's an amazing document, because it predicts apps like Fargo. And it also explains why we were able to go so far with Dropbox. They planned for it.

I wish that every company that makes a server with an API would read this document, and do the work that Dropbox did to be friendly to static JavaScript apps.

Basically, it should be possible to write a static JavaScript app that talks with your platform without requiring a server app acting as a proxy. That means either having CORS set for it, or using JSONP.

This is a beautiful way to deploy apps, and we should be encouraging it.

8/13/2013; 9:03:33 PM

Really interesting to see Automattic add this functionality.

It gives the app to access the user's WordPress data. Sites, posts, comments, taxonomy, a user graph, notifications.

Contrast that to what Dropbox offers -- access to users' files and folders. They don't provide a blog-like rendering of the data, as WordPress does. They've left that to developers, such as Small Picture (my company). What you're reading now, on Scripting News, was rendered from data stored in Dropbox. With Dropbox, the user has all their data sitting on their computers, synchronized at all times (the core feature of Dropbox). WordPress apparently offers no data storage other than access to blog posts and comments.

Google offers access to Google Drive data. No CMS features, but more flexibility with data.

Then there's Twitter, which gives you tweet-like renderings of very small chunks of data, with highly restricted write-access to large attached objects (pictures, video).

Will all these companies eventually even-out their feature sets and compete with each other in all areas? Will Dropbox provide blog-like renderings for data stored in the users folders? Google? Microsoft? Box? Will WordPress provide general data storage like app.net does?

It would be really interesting to see a full grid comparing the services.

8/13/2013; 4:07:03 PM

Snowden: "Any unencrypted message sent over the Internet is being delivered to every intelligence service in the world."

8/13/2013; 3:24:16 PM

I did a few searches, and looked around the EFF site to get an idea of where their money comes from. I did not find the information, except in a general sense, that a percentage comes from foundations, some from companies, and some from individuals.

I'm sure they try to represent all of us, and they have done a great job, except now, when it comes to the NSA revelations, it seems to me that they, like a lot of the pundits in tech, have a conflict, unless little or none of their funding comes from the tech industry.

As Bruce Schneier observes, the tech industry is now clearly subordinate to the US government. How long this has been going on is in dispute. Schneier believes it's recent. I think it's deeply ingrained in the structure of the tech industry. There's a revolving door between government and the industry, as with every other industry. Tech is younger so it's less developed, but it's catching up quickly.

Foundations like the EFF may be conflicted as well. Until we know where their money comes from, we won't have a good picture of whether or how conflicted they are.

There has been some discussion. Bruce Sterling wrote a piece that was critical of the EFF without naming them, criticism that I thought was fair. There was a response from Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing and one by Danny O'Brien who currently works at EFF.

Doctorow is a former staffer at EFF and a current EFF fellow.

The discussion so far has been superficial and some of it disappointingly personal. It would be better to get an overall sense of who we're dealing with. Is EFF repping Google, Apple, Amazon, etc? Or the users of the Internet? Can't really represent both now, because the interests are in conflict, imho. And if EFF doesn't represent the people, who does?

Update

8/13/2013; 10:25:49 AM