Comments on: OpenFreecycle won at OpenHackLondon!

By: kubbnuts

kubbnuts — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:36:56 +0000

Hi,

Have you thought about releasing this under a different name to freecycle?

Just because there is some controversy around the US Freecycle trying to take over locally run groups…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2009/sep/10/uk-freecycle-us-network

and the name belongs to the US network.

Is this open source? Could it perhaps be released on a source code repository like git hubs or would that make you unpopular with Yahoo? Then each group would be free to do with it as they please (within the T&Cs), and development/hosting wouldn’t depend on your efforts.

By: Freecycle. Encoded. « bits and pieces

Freecycle. Encoded. « bits and pieces — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:30:31 +0000

[...] freecycle now on the web [...]

By: Alex Beston

Alex Beston — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:25:29 +0000

nice one!!!

By: Simon Harriyott

Simon Harriyott — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:15:41 +0000

A great idea, and well implemented. I’d love this to become more established, and I hope you get the Ts&Cs sorted out with Yahoo!

By: Premasagar

Premasagar — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:18:19 +0000

Si – I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had some obstacles from the Birmingham group. I hope you guys are able to resolve that soon. Thank you for your thoughtful comments.

By: Premasagar

Premasagar — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:13:42 +0000

The Yahoo Groups Terms of Service discussion is interesting, and one on which I want to gain more clarity. Our development of the app has been put on hold until we get clear on this.

For sure – there is no intention to run this as a big commercial venture, and it is only something worth providing for a group if the people want it. That said, a lot of people DO want this.

Indeed, Yahoo themselves want this, as demonstrated by their interest at the Hack Day event, and by getting in touch with me since then to take the app forward. I hope to have more news on that soon.

By: Barry

Barry — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:58:05 +0000

I am very interested in this mashup and wondered if you had any intention of opening this up to the wider UK Freecycle community… It would, we think, be well received at least in the UK which has a tradition of development in contrast to some other quarters…

Having exited MyFreecycle recently, it would be nice to see if this has an application for us…

Best regards,
Barry
(Watford Mod)

By: Simon Hammond Blog » Freecycle update

Simon Hammond Blog » Freecycle update — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:44:16 +0000

[...] posters wanted their message to reach as many people as possible. I’ve tried to make my case on the OpenFreecycle blog post which I recommend as a place to carry on discussion about moving Freecycle on from a closed mailing [...]

By: Si

Si — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 21:48:45 +0000

@Prem – if you could fix that broken link in my last comment I’d appreciate it. Thanks, Si.

By: Si

Si — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 21:45:22 +0000

These are valid concerns from Mel and Jerome so I’ll try to address them fully.

Yahoo! ToS
Not only has Yahoo! shown strong support at the highest level for the spirit of this development but the only related clause which I can find in the ToS seems to be limited to *commercial* uses (item 10 of http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/info/terms.html ) which clearly excludes OpenFreecycle and freelist2web. Please let me know if I’ve missed something here.

Privacy
Mailing lists themselves have no way of protecting poster privacy, particularly when the users are unknown to the moderators. In such cases, moderator approval of membership can only be withdrawn to block known spammers. Any automated collection of poster e-mail addresses is undetectable (and actually unstoppable) in principle and practice via any random subscribed address.

Both OpenFreecycle and freelist2web actually take a stricter line on privacy and withold the e-mail addresses from the web interface. OpenFreecycle just doesn’t show them and freelist2web strips the part after the ‘@’ (a similar approach to the Yahoo! Groups page).

If privacy of identifying information is respected then we only have to consider the redistribution of the post content. The main reason for using Freecycle rather than other recycling services is that it has more members and so has a better chance of shifting or finding an item. In other words, the poster wants to reach as many interested people as possible. OpenFreecyle and freelist2web are designed solely to support this, using current ideas and technologies.

I hope these points address the main worries facing these projects; I now need to put them to the Birmingham moderators. After being tipped off by Jerome I noticed that I’ve been recently unsubscribed from the local Freecycle group and Freecycle Cafe.

I’m a bit surprised by this since the founder of the group seems generally positive about freelist2web and OpenFreecycle but will try to straighten it out so I can carry on working with Freecycle.

Amongst other things, I have a kneeling stool that needs a new home…