Re: Federation protocols

On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 6:06 PM, Michiel B. de Jong
<anything@michielbdejong.com> wrote:
> I think in a polyglot mindset we should allow both email-like and URL-like
> identifiers, and I even think that it is the only way forward. If we can
> apply polyglot thinking at that most basic level of the user identifier,
> then we will also be able to apply it at all the other levels, and can
> achieve interop without having to discuss superiority of certain design
> choices over others. It is actually a beautiful thing that all our systems
> are so different and unique, that's part of the richness! :) Let's try to
> federate them with each other in a polyglot way.

This polyglot "adapter" approach come with high "costs". IIRC, even
Friendica Red decided to limit what it can connect to [1]. At a basic
level there needs to be a few building blocks to support interop,
otherwise the cost of integrating with every system out there are too
high (remember integration is not just a one time task and anyone that
has integrated with more than one system knows about this ongoing
maintenance "cost"). On the flip side, maybe this could be the reason
only a few of the systems that are "friends" with each other will
survive and grow, and achieve network effects, while the rest of them
die out because without the basic building blocks for interop they
will have no options if they cannot "convince" others to integrate
using "their approach".


1. "Friendica also has a bit of a 'scaling problem'. This is due
primarily on the fact that we offer connections to a huge number of
other services. Many of these don't offer "direct delivery" so we must
poll them frequently to find out if there's a new message for your
stream." - http://friendica.com/node/50


--
Sandeep Shetty
Founder, Simpthings
http://simpthings.com/
http://sandeep.shetty.in/p/about.html

Received on Friday, 31 May 2013 13:02:52 UTC