Anyone who trots out the tired old cliche about walled gardens is just spouting rhetoric. Anyone who also advocates open source is can be ignored out of hand.
The issues here are open standards, open protocols and the small matter of who pays for the upkeep of the infrastructure necessary to provide the service. Tired, Maoist-style sloganeering is merely making a noise.
I mentioned "federated" too, in case you missed it. You are right, that's the most important part. Yet another reason to support things like StatusNet over walled gardens like Twitter and app.net.
The issues here are open standards, open protocols and the small matter of who pays for the upkeep of the infrastructure necessary to provide the service. Tired, Maoist-style sloganeering is merely making a noise.