Re: User stories for Social API

On 02/04/2015 04:45 PM, James M Snell wrote:
> The lack of federation between existing social platforms is due
> largely to the lack of incorporating federation requirements into the
> design of the platform and it's API. That's not evidence that the
> Social API and Federation API are two separate things. Rather, it
> demonstrates that if you want real Federation, you really ought to
> bake it into the design from the beginning.
> 
> Yes, there are distinct aspects of federation that would qualify it as
> a separate top level bullet point within the Social API's list of
> features, but I do not view Federation as an entirely separate entity.

That's a understood point - which is why we are running the deliverables
(i.e. the API and Federation) at the same time, as there may be some
dependencies. Nonetheless, we will deliver a protocol for federation as
a *separate* document, as noted in the charter.

To be precise "A social API should include the ability to embed
third-party information and share social data between web applications.
The API should re-use the social data transfer syntax and _may_ allow
some interaction with the federation protocol. The API should also be
extensible in terms of the items of interest expressible by the data
format."

So, for an intuitive difference, you may want to look at the difference
between OpenSocial API or Twitter API and federation protocol like
Pingback or Pubsubhubbub. Ideally, at least some subset of the Social
API should be compatible with even a single silo, and easily translate
to existing single silo set-ups.

I think some of the "cognitive overload" people are feeling is trying to
push all the federation features they want into the Social API, while
the Federation Protocol itself may simply be a HTTP-based REST API.
While there may be overlap, we'd have to recharter if we wanted to merge
the deliverables into one. I for one haven't seen an popular existing
social API with federation as a first class citizen, but I'm all ears if
someone can email one to the list.

   cheers,
      harry


> 
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 7:26 AM, Evan Prodromou <evan@e14n.com> wrote:
>> On 2015-02-04 09:56 AM, James M Snell wrote:
>>>
>>> Nor should we fool ourselves into thinking that the social API and
>>> federation bits are two separate things.
>>
>> Given that most social networks today a) have client APIs and b) don't have
>> federation, it seems pretty clear to me that they are two separate things.
>>
>> Could you explain how I'm fooling myself?
>>
>> -Evan
>>
>>
>

Received on Wednesday, 4 February 2015 18:19:33 UTC