Re: [Social] Fwd: GNU/social legacy

[hellekin]

On 12/12/2012 06:46 AM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
> 
> HTTP URIs
>
*** Too bad they are unidirectional. What's the status of XLINK?

Also, they tend to break. I had to correct a 404 today. That should be
addressed seriously.

As Evan suggested, and address@hidden does have it too, as that it
depends on the centralized Domain Name System: that is the underlying
protocol in both cases, is centralized, and utterly broken. DNSsec will
certainly solved part of the issues with DNS, but won't change its
centralized nature. Isn't using an HTTP URI or an email-like address an
implementation detail?

In the current state of affairs, you have to pay a tribute to companies
for the service (contrary to, for example: phonebooks, where companies
actually pay to have you listed, and that's why the books come gratis),
and you cannot easily move from a domain to another.

As an unrelated, but analogical example, consider Google Reader, the RSS
service. It states you're free to move away, and can indeed export your
feeds as an OPML file. But when you do so, you actually lose all the
reputation you built over time using this service, as all links that
others made to your own instance of that service will not follow you.
And I don't see Google, or any other commercial company, maintaining
links for people who stopped using their services.

In comparison, GNUnet offers a distributed DNS dubbed GADS[1], that
potentially brings an unlimited name space. Think categories vs. taxonomies.

You may also want to read lynX's thoughts about why using address@hidden is
not necessarily a good idea when it comes to interoperability. [2]

> 
> I appreciate your world view.  I would be very happy if there were
> efforts from OStatus based systems to talk to web based systems based
> off HTTP URIs.  If efforts were made in the OStatus ecosystem to talk to
> heterogeneous systems outside of itself, with evidence efforts made to
> of interop, I would happily change my view.  But in the years that I've
> followed, this has not happened, and I dont expect that to change. 
>  
*** That's part of the issue we're trying to solve with the proposal I
made to this list (which, obviously, will be pursued somewhere else.) By
coordinating projects, I simply mean bring that kind of issues to the
table, make sure they're solved collectively, and that a maximum number
of developers are aware of them, and participate in solving them.

If you didn't yet, you can read the proposal at [3].

==
hk

[1] GNU Alternative Domain System (GADS)
https://gnunet.org/sites/default/files/schanzen_defense_slides.pdf
[2] http://about.psyc.eu/Jabber#JIDs_aren.27t_flexible_enough
[3] http://cepheide.org/consensus/manifesto.html

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