So Data Liberation or Data Portability? They sound like the same thing but one is a adhoc group of people working together and the other is ummmmm, well run out of Google's public policy.
Imagine you want to move out of your apartment. When you ask your landlord about the terms of your previous lease, he says that you are free to leave at any time; however, you cannot take all of your things with you – not your photos, your keepsakes, or your clothing. If you're like most people, a restriction like this may cause you to rethink moving altogether. Not only is this a bad situation for you as the tenant, but it's also detrimental to the housing industry as a whole, which no longer has incentive to build better apartments at all.
Don't get me wrong, the google guys have got the right idea, but this isn't the same scope as the data portability group. Data liberation is Google's attempt to get its house in order but its not trying to change the world. When the Data Portability group started, the group spoke to many companies and other groups. We also looked around and considered the bigger picture. Actually by the time autonomo.us had come around I had already started moved away from the data portability group. My friend Dave isn't a fan at all, but he's a Free software guy and finds anything but Free software too loose and insulting (did I mention he's talking at London Geekdinners on Thursday). In the end its interesting to watch but don't expect any major changes outside the goodge suite, actually autonomo.us have a good look at the Chrome OS in regards to privacy and portability.
