Re: Federation protocols

Hi there,

Dnia piątek, 31 maja 2013 o 18:34:16 Simon Tennant napisał(a):
> On 31 May 2013 18:00, Michał 'rysiek' Woźniak <rysiek@fwioo.pl> wrote:
> > > or pump?
> > 
> > I see pump as something that actually actively goes against what we
> > really need right now -- a single interoperability standard for
> > federated social services.
> 
> It seems like you believe that privacy alone is enough to get an
> alternative to Facebook to work. Why did this not work with Diaspora?

No, and I have said so several times already in this thread. I know it is 
convenient for you to make this statement, but it's factually wrong.

I have already said that privacy is but one of several reasons people might 
want to switch. Developers' independence of a single entity's policies is 
another, for example. There is also the question of censorship, as indicated 
before in one of the e-mails. And we can probably find several more.

> Again we are back to the solution you are proposing is to take the lowest
> common denominator of all three and force them to interoperate.

Nobody can "force" anybody to interoperate. Nobody will hold a gun to 
anybody's head. This is something that has to be done together, in a 
discussion.

I am hoping to start such a discussion.

> If you are serious about this, you try to map the functions between the
> different social networks. As I said earlier, the devil is in the details
> and it's not for lack of trying. You will need to look at each API call and
> each protocol call, look at how all the networks resynchronise posts and
> then try to find commonality. And you will have to make sure that the
> application logic matches.

Of course. We have already, in this very thread, mapped some of the problems 
(public/private communication; what UID should look like) and I proposed 
workable solutions that have not been, as of yet, criticised.

> You will then need to come up for a solution for the situation where one
> network wants to focus on feature X that will break backwards compatibility
> with two other networks.

Somehow this does not happen with SMTP too much. Apparently standards can 
work. Imagine that!

> It's nice to ignore the details, but they have a habit of coming back to
> bite you hard.

Indeed. Details like the fact that I do see other reasons than privacy to move 
off of Facebook that are appealing to the users and developers; and that I do 
not shy away from trying to find solutions to protocol conundrums -- details 
that you seem to have missed.

-- 
Pozdrawiam
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak

Fundacja Wolnego i Otwartego Oprogramowania