Re: [Social-discuss] Some Thoughts

[Story Henry]

On 23 Mar 2010, at 22:56, Henry Litwhiler wrote:
> On 3/23/10 5:03 PM, Story Henry wrote:
>> On 23 Mar 2010, at 21:33, Henry Litwhiler wrote:
>> 
>>   
>>> To me, at least, decentralization is a very important thing, and the GNU
>>> Social project can serve not only as a way of pulling people out of these
>>> über-centralized social networking sites but also as a way of changing the
>>> way the internet works at a fundamental level.
>>>     
>> This is even more fundamental if you place your WebId ( 
>> http://esw.w3.org/WebID ) on that server. Your identity itself becomes 
>> something that you then control. To put it somewhere else is to make 
>> yourself under the tutellage of someone else. It should only happen in 
>> exceptional circumstances.
>> 
>> This is about controlling your identity.
>> 
>> Henry
>> 
>> Social Web Architect
>> http://bblfish.net/
>>   
> Absolutely. One of the major driving forces behind the project is the idea of 
> putting privacy and personal data control ahead of convenience.

Mind you if you try 

http://webid.myxwiki.org/ 

you will see that making a WebId and associating it with an x509 certificate is 
a one click affair. The fact that it is hosted on another server is of course 
just a deployment issue... 

There are sites such as http://ladistribution.net/ which show how installation 
of social software could be as easy as one click. What they are missing is the 
single distributed sign on piece (which foaf+ssl provides). So currently that 
service gives a iphone like - click and install - user interface for installing 
apps. No reason installing social software could not be that easy.

Henry