[NLnet Press] Unhosted protocol separates software and remote data

[NLnet foundation press list]

"Unhosted protocol separates software and remote data"
NLnet funds development of remote data protocol for web applications

                        Amsterdam/Berlin, Friday September 9th 2011

NLnet foundation announces today that it will financially support the
Unhosted project with a grant for a period of one year. Unhosted is
a groundbreaking community effort to provide a safe way for users
to work with web applications, by allowing the separation of software
made available through the internet from their personal and business
data. Unhosted makes it possible to use software served from the
premises of a vendor while allowing the data to remain elsewhere -
even inside the private domain of a person or organisation. Because
the application and the data can meet in the browser, there is no
reason to restrict data to where the software originates.

"We think Unhosted provides a novel paradigm for internet
applications,", says Michiel Leenaars, director of Strategy at NLnet
foundation, "Just like regular software doesn't impose on you where
data lives, software consumed as a service should allow you to keep
data where you want it too. It actually makes a lot of sense."

"Computers have a hard disk inside them with all your data under
your control. But more and more applications are hosted online,
inviting us to put our data onto their servers. Apart from our data
being locked inside a place we don't have control over, many websites
sell our data to third parties. This is a huge emergency in terms of
consumer rights.", says Unhosted project lead Michiel de Jong. "As
software moves to the cloud, the PC is replaced by shiny devices
like the iPad and Chromebook. The iPad synchronizes with the Apple
cloud, and the Chromebook synchronizes with the Google cloud.
But unhosted web apps let the user decide which cloud provider they
prefer. Consumers can already choose between multiple providers of
commodities like electricity, telephony, and internet connection. Our
protocol does the same for your remote storage. "

Unhosted was started exactly one year ago on September 9th 2010
by a group of volunteers led by Michiel de Jong, a Dutch software
developer based in Berlin. The project provides both a implementation
agnostic protocol - building on existing standards such as WebDAV,
OAuth and Webfinger - and an SDK that can be used by applications
for easy integration. In addition to the grant from NLnet foundation,
Unhosted already raised 14.000 through crowdsourced funding.
Acceptance of cloud applications often hinges on the trust that people
have in their vendors, and Unhosted increases the options for people
to use remote applications without fear of their data being used for
unintended purposes. "Unhosted takes the general idea of the cloud
one step further by separating functionality, trust and storage to
different places in the cloud," says Leenaars. "It points us to the
challenging idea that maybe the best technology provider should be
just that, and not the keeper of our private and commercial secrets."

To work on the topic in an open and vendor-neutral way, a Community
Group was formed this week at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

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Not for publication:

This press release is also available at:

http://nlnet.nl/press/20110909-unhosted.html

Further information:

Michiel Leenaars
NLnet foundation
Tel: +31 6 27050947
SIP/XMPP/mail: michiel [at] nlnet.nl


About NLnet Foundation

NLnet Foundation is a widely respected private charity fund supporting
developments of networking technology worldwide, and has over the years
actively contributed to (internet) standards, open source projects and
subsidiary or enabling activities such as the development of GPLv3.
NLnet Foundation's means came initially from interest on a substantial
own capital formed in 1997 by the sale of the first Dutch Internet
Service Provider. Its private capital ensures an absolute independent
position. The articles of association for the NLnet Foundation state:
"to promote the exchange of electronic information and all that
is related or beneficial to that purpose". At any moment, dozens
of projects are being supported worldwide.

                                 http://nlnet.nl
About Unhosted

Unhosted is a project that is intended to help applications work with
remote data, so that users can choose where their important data is hosted.
Unhosted returns cloud services to the original idea of a loosely coupled,
distributed Web. Unhosted provides both an SDK and a cross-origin
data storage protocol, separating data servers from webservers.

                                 http://unhosted.org
                                 http://www.w3.org/community/unhosted