Re: Finding user profiles on a Social Net

> Michał 'rysiek' Woźniak <mailto:rysiek@fwioo.pl>
> 11 June 2013 15:32
>
> +1
>
> That would be the best solution, but no social network software I know of
> implements it. Instead, webfinger is being used. :/
>
>
What concrete advantages do you get from DNS-SD over Webfinger? All I 
see is the negative that now you have to have DNS control of your 
domain, in addition to HTTP control, and it still doesn't answer the 
question of how you do user discovery.

Webfinger provides the ability to do both:

  * rel="about", rel="self" or rel="alternate"  (just pick one and run
    with it) can be used to link to the user's profile page, API
    "profile" and various other information. Hypothetically: [
    {"rel":"self", "type":"text/html",
    "href":"https://example.org/~person"},
    {"rel":"self", "type":"application/stream+json",
    "href":"https://api.example.org/user/person"},
    {"rel":"self", "type":"text/vcard",
    "href":"https://api.example.org/user/person/vcard"},
    {"rel":"self", "type":"application/vcard+xml",
    "href":"https://api.example.org/user/person/vcard.xml"}]
  * Custom relations can be used to link to whatever API endpoints the
    user needs. For example, Pump.io uses the (presently unregistered)
    "activity-inbox" and "activity-outbox" links (these are, of course,
    user dependent)
  * Finally, you might need other relationships for client associations
    (i.e. OAuth and similar). They could be located either in the
    WebFinger response for the user (may reduce the number of requests
    required) or in the host metadata

I don't get why one would suggest combining both WebFinger and DNS-SD in 
one specification. Why complicate matters unnecessarily?

Particularly when, outside (apparently) some large corporations, DNS 
configuration is a far higher hurdle than adding something to the web 
root. If we struggle to get people to deploy these applications today, 
when mostly they just require uploading and connecting to a database... 
how much harder will it be when they also have to add complex TXT 
records to their DNS?