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by privacy_esq 2494 days ago
While I do appreciate the efforts of the foundation, a true privacy by design foundation should be promoting the PbD principles in general instead of simply building a decentralized identity app.
3 comments

It was open-source, MIT/BSD-licensed reference implementations of X11, email and Web servers which helped hugely to promote the adoption of these protocols.

It was the mere hinting by the University of Minnesota that it might consider proprietary licencing of the gopher protocol that killed it dead. Numerous other protocols have been pitched but as proprietary solutions, never to see widespread acceptance. Sun's NEWS display system, and numerous HTML also-rans particularly come to mind.

Even the FSF, which strongly encourages GPL and APL licencing to spread the concept and use of Free Software acknowledges and encourages the use of "permissive" licencing -- MIT, BSD, and LGPL -- to encourage adoption of open protocols and infrastructure (glibc and other libraries).

The point of my post is IRMA, their decentralized, attributed-based identity project. The mods changed the title I gave to that of the foundation website.

PS: I learned about it via a talk from the Royal Institution:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vINtD58nLPQ

Thanks.

If anyone from Privacy by Design is reading, an explainer article with a headline clearly stating the tool and intent would be very useful collateral to share.

HN, and numerous other sites, insist on sticking strictly to original titles in many cases, to avoid amplification or distortion by submitters. As original authors, getting your own headlines appropriately focused is a huge benefit.

The site itself is a bit of a hot mess (as are many these days) and could use some focus on orienting and familiarising readers with the project, goals, action items, and tools & resources.

I don't find their website confusing but FWIW: https://github.com/privacybydesign/pbdf-website
Building something that implements the principles you support can be a highly effective way of promoting them. E.g. Mozilla and Firefox.