Diaspora, the open Facebook alternative, releases its code

On Thursday Diaspora, a social Web site that hopes to offer an alternative to Facebook, announced that its developers would be allowed to download the code used to build the new service and begin exploring and enhancing the Diaspora software.

Diaspora is the result of four New York University students who became frustrated by Facebook's confusing privacy policy. As The Times' Jim Dwyer noted in an article earlier this year, the entire project was a "call to arms" over Facebook's less than transparent explanation of how its users' data was being exposed to others and to advertisers.

The developers began the new start up by  seeking funding through a Web site called Kickstarter, which makes it simple for people to donate money towards a specific project. The team originally asked for $10,000, but a number of unhappy Facebook users donated over $200,000 to the project and left over 850 comments showing their support.

Just a few months later, the Diaspora team is testing the site and trying to entice other programmers to get involved in the bold project. In a blog post on the company's Web site, the founders announced some of the features that are currently in the works and gave developers access to download the appropriate code.

The first version of the site is extremely clean and simple and although some of the functions looks similar to Facebook, it has a distinctly simpler look and feel. Diaspora said the site currently enables people to upload of photos and albums, share their current status and photos privately and "in near real time with your friends" and "friend people across the Internet."

Although it was not clear when the entire site would be available to the public, the company made the promise that it would continue to be an open project:

    We live our real lives in context, speaking from whatever aspect of ourselves that those around us know. Social tools should work the same way. Getting the source into the hands of developers is our first experiment in making a simple and functional tool for contextual sharing. Diaspora is in its infancy, but our initial ideas are there.

Upcoming features include integrating with Facebook so people can access their social graph there and offering the ability to let users take their data with them to other Web sites.