Re: [Social-discuss] PHP-Based GNU Social structure

[Henry Litwhiler]

On 3/28/10 3:35 PM, James Walker wrote:
> Hey folks, been idly watch, but just have to jump in here before this
> gets much more out of hand...
>
> On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 3:28 PM, Henry Litwhiler<address@hidden>  wrote:
>    
> > On 3/28/10 3:21 PM, Matt Lee wrote:
> >      
> > > On 03/28/2010 02:57 PM, Henry Litwhiler wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >        
> > > > Assuming that we go with a pure-PHP GNU Social, what would the
> > > > application look like, structure-wise? How would the nodes communicate?
> > > >
> > > >          
> > > So, I thought about the two typical ways people communicate in something
> > > like Facebook.
> > >
> > > 1. They send messages to each other -- via wall posts, inbox messages,
> > > chat.
> > >
> > > 2. They publish things -- status updates, photos, notes, join groups.
> > >
> > > For the messaging, something like XMPP could be used.
> > >
> > >
> > >        
> > Developing (or incorporating) good, solid, decentralized messaging protocol
> > will have to be a major focus of the GNU Social project.
> >      
> Blaine mentioned our work earlier, but I would strongly encourage you
> to check out OStatus - http://ostatus.org/ . It already incorporates
> both messaging as well as following/subscriptions. It's currently used
> by StatusNet (http://status.net/) - but is built on the same open
> protocol stack used by Google Buzz, Cliqset.com and others.
>
> This can all be done completely statelessly in exactly the environment
> that Matt has outlined (StatusNet uses the same LAMP stack).
>
> I would strongly encourage you all to focus on adopting existing
> (preferably, rather than creating) open standards. True decentralized
> networking should be platform and language independent.
>
>    
While I would be strongly opposed to the notion of GNU Social turning 
into the pasting together of a bunch of nearly unrelated standards, I 
also would be strongly opposed to reinventing the wheel, which is what 
we would be doing if we tried to develop our own social networking format.

I agree - we would probably be better off adopting something like 
OStatus, rather than developing our own format.
> > > For the publishing, something like RSS or Atom could be used.
> > >
> > >        
> > I hadn't thought of that. This, of course, goes back to the "pull" rather
> > than "push" methodology.
> >      
> Completely untrue - RSS&  Atom are document formats ... they can be
> pushed realtime (see above). See also PubSubHubbub -
> http://code.google.com/p/pubsubhubbub/ .
>
>    
My mistake. I simply meant that users would have to get the RSS/Atom 
feed from another server, rather than having it sent to them.
> > > > What would the user experience be like?
> > > >
> > > >          
> > > I think the UX would be similar to Facebook, but different in the ways
> > > we encourage communication.
> > >        
>