Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Skype Replacement?

[Michał 'rysiek' Woźniak]

Dnia poniedziałek, 14 maja 2012 o 12:08:16 Nikos Roussos napisał(a):
> I totally disagree with the central registry approach. Federation
> is always better for preserving freedom.

Federation/decentralisation doesn't have to mean no registry. Look at 
Diaspora - there are multiple pods, but I can search and connect to 
users from any pod that is accessible.

That is also a sort-of, kind-of central registry. Well, maybe not 
"central", but "federated" - however, from the users' point of view, 
it's simple to use and integrated with whatever pod they are using.

We need something like this for Free Somftware based services, as 
currently we are all taking a beating due to network effect (look at 
Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Dropbox - it's all network effect at work). 
And we cannot tackle network effect if we do not build a vast network 
of users.

> One word: email.

I also love this example and I use it whenever I can.

However, thing is: when e-mail was just picking up steam, it was de 
facto the only service to connect users. Hence everybody happily set-
up their accounts and actually used it.

Currently the users cannot be bothered with Yet Another Protocol or 
Social Network, because they already use a multitude of those.

That is one of the reasons why Diaspora, StatusNet, XMPP, SIP hasn't 
picked up users as fast as we would like them to. And they won't as 
long as using them is more cumbersome than proprietary, centralised 
networks/protocols.

I think we have the technology already; we need to focus on tackling 
the network effect and on heavily usability.

-- 
Pozdrawiam
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak

Fundacja Wolnego i Otwartego Oprogramowania

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