Take your example of Facebook: nobody would attempt setting up the same shop at another domain, because they wouldn’t stand a chance – after all, if Facebook uses something like an Affero license, whatever fancy extensions you come up with they can then take back, too. I even don’t think someone would manage to set up an ad-free version – how would that pay for itself?

Users might however “scratch their itches” and fix whatever bug is in their way, or they might try to get extensions accepted into the project. In addition, users would have the comforting feeling that they *could* in theory set up a community server – think of it as a backup for the hypothetical situation that Facebook would go bust. It’s a win-win situation.

An interesting thing is that you do of course need to be big enough for this principle to kick in. Facebook has reached a user base that would allow them to do this without fear of, say, AOL taking their code and setting up a more popular equivalent. That’s why I think it’s smart to keep Launchpad (sorry to bring that up, but actually Dread Knight did :)) under covers for a couple more months.

Maybe a nice “standard practice” on the web would be to release new web services with a EULA that promises the user to hand over the code to them at a set date in the future. If by that date you didn’t get big enough to be protected by above principle – well, then you didn’t have a good service anyway….

This is “standard” wording for many online services. After many gripes, Google changed the words for Chrome, but the words persist for Google Docs, Bookmarks, Apps, and various other Google Services. We may “trust” Google to “do no evil” but the “opportunity” (at least legally) persists.

Similar TOS wording is enforced for e.g., WordPress. Creators of online materials should not have to accrue the right to “adapt and modify” their works, forever and ever, world without end, in order to use online services. (I am certain Google will not allow us to “adapt and modify” the Google corporate logo!) This will continue to get in our way.