Re: Federating by Commune design idea

Hi there,

Dnia sobota, 15 czerwca 2013 o 12:41:53 Mikael Nordfeldth napisał(a):
> 2013-06-14 15:30, Michał 'rysiek' Woźniak skrev:
> > Sorry for replying so late. I wanted to go in-depth on it.
> 
> Better late than too hasty! Thanks for taking the time.
> 
> > While I do not entirely agree with Marx on many, many matters, I do
> > believe that we should -- so to speak -- bring these "means of
> > production" to the hands of the "producers". Users should control their
> > own Internet presence and their own infrastructure as much as possible.
> > or more.
> 
> An ideal I think (hope) this entire list agrees upon one way or another.
> 
> > There is no reason why it shouldn't be possible to create software that
> > implements different interfaces to the same community. Some prefer
> > forums, some prefer mailing lists. Let them use their favourite tool,
> > but have a single discussion!
> 
> It would be wonderful if this was possible (and it's certainly a goal to
> strive for).
> 
> If however I'm going to play a bit of devil's advocate, I may grab Simon
> Tennant's argument here that "the devil is in the details". It would be
> technically _impossible_ to produce a network where these front-ends
> would share a consistent experience. If I may suggest so, I believe
> that's why he argued the way he did over at:
>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-fedsocweb/2013May/0067.html
> 
> A concrete example, with non-consistent experiences and your mentioned
> forum/mailing list interaction:
> 
>    1. I create a thread from my e-mail client.
>    2. This thread is integrated into a "forum view" on a website.
>    3. A web user replies, saying it's off-topic. (I get this reply)
>    4. A moderator "deletes" or "locks" the thread.
> 
> So this action (4) instantiates a multiverse. SMTP has no way of marking
> a previous mail as "deleted" or "locked". The moderator can of course
> not do anything with _my_ IMAP account, which would've allow deletion. I
> _may_ get a mail that says "this thread is deleted", and the web view
> would probably present the thread as deleted/locked (and never update it).
> Anyone on "the e-mail side" would still be able to discuss unless
> drastic measures are made on how their mail server handles "forum email"
> 
> This is probably one of the world view differences among us on this
> list: multiverse or not. And how one would (if at all) force the
> federated nodes into a single, compatible universe.
> Which I mentioned (and you, Michał, +1'd) probably is /impossible/.

Sure. But then again, the SMTP service on the forum server can simply reject 
new e-mails in a given "locked" or "deleted" thread (based on In-Reply-to or 
other headers that are already being used by mailinglist archiving software).

The fact that some users have copies in their own mailboxes would be as 
irrelevant, as the fact that some users could make screenshots or printouts, 
or save the whole website offline, with the "deleted" posts visible.

I stipulate that the "actionables" (can/cannot post in the thread) are more 
relevant and important than "data" (whether or not a post is deleted in all 
its instances).

> It may all be solved in the future, with the One Single Protocol, but
> right now - I don't think any first-adopters really care. As long as
> they federate, control their own data or /at least an admin they trust/.
> 
> > Another idea is to have "instant mailing lists". Sending e-mail to
> > several people + a "nonexistant-list-name@lists.example.com" (provided
> > there's a proper software set-up on example.com) could automagically
> > create an impromptu mailing list with addressees automagically added.
> > Any reply to the list with a new addressee in To or CC fields would add
> > this address to the list.
> 
> Of course! Awesome proposal. If this isn't something mailman already
> supports - I think it's something which should be implemented
> immediately. mailman is Python, right? Let's hop on it.

Cool. Happy that got your interest. I would strongly advise *against* Mailman 
as the basis, though. We dearly need another decent yet simple mailing list 
server (at my Foundation we moved to Sympa, but it's dreadfully complicated).

Something based on SQLite and standard Maildir back-end should do the trick. 
KISS (Keep It Simple and Standards-based). ;)

> (though, as a detail for discussion, I don't think anyone should be
> added to the list/group until they themselves send a reply - either with
> content or just empty for subscription :P)

That could be configurable, server-side, along with "who can create impromptu 
mailing lists" and other minutiae.

> >> No, I haven’t put all of this together. There’s no Commune Demo Site.
> >> Sorry about that. But the idea has struck me several times while tying
> >> together my GNU Social-based Free & Social user database for
> >> postfix/dovecot for email and Prosody for XMPP. So I figured I’d type it
> >> all together at last.
> > 
> > If you're interested in doing this, my Foundation will be happy to
> > provide a publicly-accessible VM instance for you to play on, along with
> > a mailing list.
> > 
> > I would help from time to time (depending on the current workload in
> > other areas of my work). This is a serious offer.
> 
> Thanks. For my personal part, I've got enough server power myself to
> experiment. Though I suppose and hope there may be others too interested
> in pushing these suggestions to a working reality and may need that
> support.
> 
> Right now I'm doing all kinds of experiments with Freesocial.org and the
> Prosody XMPP server software (rendering freesocial.org essentially
> unusable, but my lusts fulfilled :).

MWAHAHAHA I AM PLAYING WITH PRODUCTION CODE AND I LOVE IT, TREMBLE BEFORE ME 
MERE USERS.

Yeah, I know the drill. ;)

> Zash (Kim Alvefur, CC:d), a Prosody developer, seems pretty committed to
> helping out as well. He's been doing all kinds of awesome plugins for
> Prosody, from *DAV support to client certificate logins that definitely
> helps to tie stuff together.

Nice!

-- 
Pozdrawiam
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak

Fundacja Wolnego i Otwartego Oprogramowania