

Data Portability and Lies, Damned Lies - rizzn
http://siliconangle.net/ver2/2009/10/19/data-portability-and-lies-damned-lies/

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tjpick
> Contrary to what Sachin claims, there is no export function, and the read
> API has a limitation of 50

bah, that's based on the 'num_posts' param. But there is also an optional
'page' param right underneath the bit he is complaining about. You just have
to make multiple calls to get them all out. Not such a big deal if you're used
to using search based API's.

Doesn't look like author read the doc very closely.

~~~
rizzn
That's not the point. Not the point at all.

Sachin defends his service Posterous because non-geeks can do _everything_
with it without knowing how to walk and chew bubblegum.

I can't name five members of my immediate or extended family that has a lot of
experience using a search based API. Hell, I'm a coder, and I don't have that
much experience using a search based API.

I code when I hafta, and I don't want to write a whole set of libraries just
to export my data. Creating artificial barriers to the exit door is the exact
opposite of the spirit of Data Portability.

Edit: Incidentally, it isn't that I didn't read the API that thoroughly, it's
that the API isn't that well documented. Pretty much what is screenshotted is
what exists. It's not very well explained.

~~~
a4agarwal
tjpick thanks for pointing out how you can get more than 50 posts out by using
the page parameter. Yes, the documentation is not very clear at all and we
need to fix that.

rizzn, it's true that most of our users wouldn't be able to use the export API
since they are not programmers.

But we're relying on programmers to write the shims needed to go from
Posterous to Wordpress, Posterous to Tumblr, Posterous to Blogger. We simply
don't have the resources to do this, so we wrote export to be as generic as
possible.

Other sites do export by letting you pull down an XML file with all posts. We
could do this, but then what about the media? Where should we put that?

The point is, we always want to let you get your info out. We have assured our
users (including Scoble and Rubel personally) that they will always be able to
get their data out, including the original files they have sent us, if they
ever need to.

------
rizzn
I've been around since the whole Data Portability thing was conceptualized.
Everyone nodded and stroked their beards pensively, but it's been what? Two
years? Three years? Data is still effectively locked up under the guise of
portability.

~~~
wmf
Maybe what people really want is not portability but something else. Data
ownership perhaps.

~~~
yellowbkpk
Google already says you "own" your data. But you don't really own it if you
can't take it with you to other places.

~~~
wglb
They now have a data liberation front: <http://www.dataliberation.org/>

