There is a website being created to take on Facebook ... I will post more about Diaspora as they progress.

Diaspora is an open source project. I'm sure they will create a GPL license that will set this program free in to the wild. Like Linux and a host of other open source projects, much of the work is done by people for free. It's hard to believe that people donate such energy for free, but Joomla, Drupal, WordPress.... etc all live by this for the most part. FaceBook will not be able to purchase Diaspora.

Diaspora seems like it will use standard RSS. RSS (really simple syndication) always 'pushes' information to the subscribers (friends) and I would assume that you (the owner) will have complete control over the who, what, when and where. Diaspora is _not_ a P2P network at all. Diaspora is not trying to protect your privacy from your friends. You trust your friends with your information ...right?

The whole fight is about FaceBook 'selling' my personal information I'm sharing with my friends (who I trust) to companies (who I don't trust) with out my permission. And to top it all off, FaceBook lays claim to all my information on their servers as their property, to do what they like with it and to profit off my life/information/friends. ... Timothy CNN blog