* KDevelop —> export to kde-apps.org, qt-apps.org
* DigiKam, Krita, Karbon14, Gwenview … —> export to kde-look.org
* Kate, KOrganizer, KOffice, … —> export to kde-files.org

I’m sure many other examples could be made where one could have something in the lines of KGetHotNewStuff (well, actually to complement it), but for uploading newly made content.

I believe freedom service promoters should not try to bring down proprietary services – they should encourage more freedom supporters join them and, then if the provider refuses to open the service, they should build their own service.

This way a free software service will start with a ready made user base. So use what works and in the meantime build your own, better freedom service.

The services I mentioned make content publicly available though. There is no need to register if you don’t want to and you will have access to everything nonetheless.

That’s my real concern about web service integration. I don’t care where other people store their data, but drawing their friends (i.e. me) into the same closed services is *not cool* and imho something that KDE should not actively encourage.

I even wrote a blog entry on that matter recently – http://jakob.petsovits.at/web-is-new-freeware – which was originally intended for a KDE audience, but I didn’t want my first post on Planet KDE to be a negative one so I kept it for myself (and Planet Drupal, which is less sensitive on free software matters of anyways).

The dependency on proprietary code is fading away quickly. But if we keep going on like this, we’ll be dependent on just as proprietary social web services instead in the future – the only difference being that they don’t just hold the code to their sites but also the user’s data, which is something that traditional proprietary vendors like Microsoft would not dare to do in their desktop software offerings.

@Flavio: This is true. I know I’m walking a tight line here and try to find something that suits a FOSS project best. Unfortunately, that’s not so easy. There is movement, but we’re not there yet.

@Matija: Good points. I agree on many of those. I gathered a couple of ideas here to get feedback and suggestions. What has to be decided on is how many downsides we actually are willing to take before we consider the whole thing not worth the struggle. I still think we will come up with a useful solution.

@Bogdan: I will surely document it as soon as this really happens and point everybody there. And I don’t intend to come up with a final decision on this blog. No need to worry. :)