This is one of the most crucial things we need to make free software viable again.  In 2006, I wrote that the only solution to the problem of proprietary services was to &quot;build these services as decentralized free-software peer-to-peer applications, pieces of which run on the computers of each user&quot;: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mail-archive.com&#x2F;kragen-tol@canonical.org&#x2F;msg00154.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mail-archive.com&#x2F;kragen-tol@canonical.org&#x2F;msg001...</a><p>And, in particular, I wrote a few months later that replacing HTTP URLs for naming content is necessary and nearly sufficient: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mail-archive.com&#x2F;kragen-tol@canonical.org&#x2F;msg00176.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mail-archive.com&#x2F;kragen-tol@canonical.org&#x2F;msg001...</a><p>We still have a long way to go, but it&#x27;s heartening to see so much work toward solving the problem!  Perhaps one of the systems mnot links to will evolve to solve the problem; perhaps it will be something that we haven&#x27;t started to build yet.<p>This is crucial to the future of civilization and to the longevity of your personal work.  Nearly all the effort that went into proprietary software in the 1980s and 1990s has been lost rather than becoming part of the cultural heritage of humanity, in the way that Emacs and GCC have.  Similarly, everything you invest today into proprietary web services is ultimately destined for the dumpster, whether it&#x27;s code you write to build them or data you store in them.  We need an alternative that has a chance of lasting.