I would be a lot more comfortable writing a Facebook app if I knew that I won't be dependent upon their continued good graces. With the platform being open source developers no longer have to host with Facebook. With an open source platform developers can go with Facebook solely to have access to Facebook data rather than to Facebook code and servers.

The next step is to free the data.

Another diversionary non-announcement; I don't think Facebook could have prevented anyone from cloning their APIs, and being able to plug Facebook apps into a different social network won't help much since you lose the network effect.

If what the article says its true they're releasing the actual code, no need to clone yourself.

In theory, it means increased distribution for app developers since their code would be easily ported to any site that implements the platform clone.

I have no idea how much how this will play out but the code should be an interesting read.

"Time to fight back"? Sometimes I question Mr. Arrington's wordplay...