Re: Federating by Commune design idea

2013-06-14 18:21, Appelquist Daniel (UK) skrev:
> Great post - I'm wondering if you've had a chance to take a look at the
> OneSocialWeb open source project (see http://onesocialweb.org) which
> implements a plug-in to the OpenFire XMPP server to demonstrate how an
> XMPP-based federated social web could work. Project now shelved and there
> are no active nodes (that I know of) still in operation, but the code is
> still there on github and could be picked up as a staring point.

Hi Dan! Not very much so, but I talked to eschnou somewhat briefly about
it at this year's FOSDEM iirc. I did however not know there was an
OpenFire server component plugin! It is sad that I did not learn about
OSW until just earlier this year. Before FOSDEM I had only seen the name
briefly, but was never encouraged to look into it!.

If I understand it correctly, OSW focuses on extending XMPP with some
typical microblogging/Activity Streams abilities and also enabling
access via HTTP REST APIs. Is this a correct understanding?

I strongly believe that the above is a good approach for having good
(logic) interoperability with other current social networks (closed and
federated) as many are, simplified, modeled after Activity Streams and
pubsub.


/However/ this is not something I would immediately implement into some
sort of "Commune" stack or solution. In my (highly personal) opinion,
there is too much newly designed stuff in OSW (and any other modern,
"Facebookish", social network). Designing all that new stuff would
require spreading new implementations and adapting a lot of software out
there.
I'm hoping for reusing already existing software to the highest degree
possible.

That's not to say it shouldn't be worked upon at all - developing all of
the federating, despite non-interoperating, networks is VERY IMPORTANT
as it lets us test a multitude of implementations simultaneously.
The fact that we're all reinventing our own wheels may seem too
ineffective right now (granted, it sometimes is...) but it does show
that the /concept/ of federated communities is very much alive at least.
And that's something to be glad about!


PS. If pettter feels I'm changing the meaning of a "Commune" (by
thinking only already widespread protocols are a priority), please speak
up and I won't smudge and adapt that specific phrase more than I already
might have done:)

-- 
Mikael Nordfeldth
http://blog.mmn-o.se/
Xmpp/mail: mmn@hethane.se