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As shown in Figure 3, the major requirements for establishing Libre Services fall under different areas of responsibility.
The resources to be created in the conceptual definition and collaborative framework arenas are general industry enablers, and are sufficiently bounded in scope to be created by a single organization. Therefore major responsibility for creation of these resources will be taken by the Free Protocols Foundation (FPF).
The scope of the required engineering and deployment work, on the other hand, is too large for any one company or organization acting alone, and must be undertaken by the industry at large.
The engineering development work is a communal activity, and can be undertaken by any individual or organization. In the free software model, software developed by any entity is released and licensed under the General Public License (GPL) or other open-source license [6], and so becomes immediately available to the entire open-source development community. In this collaborative environment it is not of any great significance who or which organization creates any particular component of the Libre Services software. The body of Libre Services software is not owned by anyone, in any restrictive sense.
At the outset the FPF is playing a major role in building the necessary engineering resources. We are actively developing LSIP and a set of starting-point service engines. As others begin to participate we expect that this work will evolve into a distributed industry-wide effort, with the FPF playing an appropriate coordination role.
Deployment and delivery of Libre Services is an essential requirement for their adoption. If Libre Services are to come into widespread usage, they must be operated and supported for the end user. In practical terms, this is something that must be done by service providers in a commercial context. Somewhere along the line, there must be a business model that supports the delivery of Libre Services to individual users.
However, as a business activity, this falls outside the responsibility of the FPF. The necessary deployment work must therefore take place in an entirely separate context.
We have established a separation of responsibility to address this issue. Responsibility for moving this initiative forward will be divided between two separate entities:
The FPF is also taking responsibility for creating momentum in the engineering development arena. We are doing the necessary work to create a set of starting-point engineering resources, and we are establishing a framework to enable collective participation by others.
The Free Protocols Foundation and Neda Communications thus play complementary roles in moving this initiative forward.
The relationship between the FPF and Neda is not unlike that between a professional association and a member of that profession; for example the American Bar Association and a particular law firm. The FPF is a voice of advocacy for the Libre Services industry as a whole. It has a moral authority, and its ultimate mandate is to serve the public interest.
Neda Communications, on the other hand, is merely one company that conducts engineering and business operations within this industry. At the outset it is playing a unique leadership role, but eventually we hope it will be just one of many companies delivering Libre Services to users.
But what is highly unusual about this, is that the Libre Services industry does not yet exist; and the enabling framework for the industry, and the first company within the industry, are both being established at the same time. Furthermore, these two structures are being established by the same persons. The authors of this paper are directors of the FPF, and also employees of Neda. Not only are we moving this initiative forward under the FPF, we are also doing the necessary deployment work under Neda.
This creates a conflict of interest issue. In the long run, it is not possible for the same persons to manage both the FPF, and a commercial entity within the Libre Services industry. At some point these responsibilities must be separated entirely.
But for the moment this conflict cannot be avoided, since we cannot divide ourselves in two, either as individuals or as a team.
In the short run, however, we believe that this conflict of interest is manageable. This is because in every capacity--we as individuals, the FPF as an organization, and Neda as an organization--we share the same unifying philosophy. In each capacity we are fully committed to the principles of the free software movement, and in each capacity we share the same ultimate vision: completely open software and Internet services industries, in which all computing and communications is based entirely on free software.
In particular, although Neda is a for-profit company, in all its engineering and business practices it fully conforms to the philosophy and principles of the FPF. All protocols developed by Neda are patent-free; all software developed by Neda is free software; all services developed by Neda are Libre Services. The potential conflict of interest is thus greatly mitigated.
It must also be emphasized that, since Libre Services are completely non-proprietary, there are no intellectual property barriers to participation in this industry. Neda enjoys no proprietary advantages whatsoever, and any company that wishes to participate is free to do so. What we are creating is a truly open industry, in which all participants must compete on a truly level playing field. And the ultimate beneficiary of this is society at large.