Re: [Social-discuss] What I think GNU Social's structure should be

[Jason Self]

Ted Smith <address@hidden> wrote ..
> In all these discussions about what the optimal structure of GNU Social
> would be, my foremost care has been freedom. I don't yet know what a
> fully free network service would look like, but I think that it would
> have to have the following properties:
> 
>       * Based on only free software (obviously)
>       * Federated, so that any user can run their own node if they wish
>       * NOT requiring or encouraging software as a service, or SaaS.
>       * Users totally control who can see their data.

Social networking isn't SaaS. [1]

The model that Matt Lee presented already meets your criteria, and can be done
with existing (and ubiquitous) tools.

It can be operated in a cheap web hosting environment, as Matt suggested, or on
one of those cheap wall wart servers like Eben Moglen mentioned [2]. Either way
the user is in control of their data.

One thing that I like about Matt's model is that it avoids the issue of what to
do one one of the nodes is offline: If my friend has unplugged their wall wart
server and are transporting it to another location, I'll be able to get their
updates once they come back online again, and their RSS/Atom/whatever feed
becomes available again. The same could be said of thing that I publish.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html
[2] http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=1338