Re: Position papers / workshop Re: FSW CG now has 100 members

On 1 July 2013 18:25, Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> wrote:

> Hi Melvin,
>
> Quoting Melvin Carvalho (2013-07-01 17:52:11)
> > Regarding standarization, I think it's difficult to argue that
> > facebook is not the leader in terms of both adoption and engineering.
> > Without facebook at the table, I think standarization would be a
> > slightly different prospect.
>
> Sorry if I am missing something obvious, but how do you see Facebook as
> being leader in the context of *federated* social networking?
>

Facebook is the network everybody loves to hate.  And there are many things
about that are concerning.  Not least privacy issues related to
centralization and the latest revelations regarding prism and other
programs.  Although I would point out that facebook is not the only firm
that this applies to.

However, within the context of this conversation please note Harry's link
on 'social standards' (note: federated, although the theme of this list, is
not a pre requisite there).  I dont speak for facebook, but my comment was
that it would be difficult to argue facebook is not the leader in this
space, both in terms of adoption and in terms of engineering.

That said, I am sure we would all like standards to offer federation,
decentralization and nice properties such as linked data.

Hopefully this is not off topic, but in terms of federation, I'd like to
point to some areas that facebook have exceeded expectations:

1. Their profiles are 5 star linked data.  This means you can link to a
facebook profile using an HTTP URI, indeed, Tim Berners-Lee does exactly
this in his profile, and also this means that facebook profiles can benefit
from unexpected reuse, which is the value add of the web.  What would be
even better is if you could link from facebook, networks OUTSIDE of
facebook, but we need to give them a reason to do that first!

2. The open graph protocol was developed at facebook, and is pointed out on
harry's link as gaining traction.  Open Graph is not related to facebook,
anyone can use it.  It's federated out to 100s of millions of sites
already, and this is far greater federation than this group has dreamt
off.

3. Facebook Connect is a well regarded authentication system, based on
OpenID Connect.  In terms of Auth across federated websites that is a
valuable pattern to look at.

4. The Facebook app ecosystem allows apps to be designed by third parties
and run on other websites, or inside facebook, leveraging the social
graph.  In this way you can make websites and applications more social by
importing things like friends lists.

The list goes on.  I know facebook are not always liked in FLOSS circles,
but my point about standarization is that it would be good to have facebook
at the table.  It would be foolish not to look at a success story and try
and find the good parts.


>
>
>  - Jonas
>
> --
>  * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
>  * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/
>
>  [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
>