On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 11:46 AM, Ross Gardler <rgard...@apache.org> wrote:
> 2009/7/6 Chris Chabot <chab...@google.com>: > > Hey guys, > > > > Great looking proposal! > > > > On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Ate Douma <a...@douma.nu> wrote: > > > >> > >> The Wookie proposal has my high interest, especially from the bridging > POV > >> between W3C Widgets and Google Gadgets. > > > > > > It seems there's a few mixed terminologies here, so in interest of making > > sure we're all talking about the same things I'll quickly go over the > > different types of 'gadgets' that could potentially be supported by > Wookie: > > > > > > - Google Gadgets, as described here: > > http://code.google.com/apis/gadgets/docs/spec.html This is a clasic > > gadget type model that doesn't have any social tools in it, think > clasic > > iGoogle home page type gadgets.. this actually has the Google brand > > associated with it and because it's a product name it's called Gadgets > (cap > > G). It's an interesting platform to support, but in general iGoogle is > > moving to OpenSocial gadgets instead (which is backward compatible). > > > > - OpenSocial gadgets not a Google brand or product, instead both the > > specification process and the reference implementation (Apache Shindig > > (-incubating)) are community driven. In the beginning it started out > with an > > iGoogle style API but has evolved to a completely different (much more > > elegant and powerful) platform that has a very large feature set, and > > focuses on social. Next to that there's the OpenSocial Foundation which > has > > people from many social-interested companies and is a non-profit > corporation > > created to sustain the free and open development of OpenSocial > > specifications. (more info at > > http://www.opensocial.org/page/opensocial-foundation-faq). The main > entry > > point to find out about OpenSocial is http://www.opensocial.org/ and > the > > Shindig reference implementation can be found at > > http://incubator.apache.org/shindig/ > > > > - There's mention of 'Wave gadgets', Google Wave uses the same gadgets > > javascript API, but adds a bit of functionality to it (as described at > > http://code.google.com/apis/wave/extensions/gadgets/reference.html), > the > > added functionality is focused around the real time nature of Google > Wave > > with functions for participants changes and data state changes. > > > > Now to support Google Gadgets and OpenSocial, the easiest way to > accomplish > > that would be to just completely pull in Apache Shindig (-incubating), > > Google Gadgets and OpenSocial support is indeed provided via Apache > Shindig (See Rationale: "The Wookie engine can render widgets using > alternative APIs by a feature extension mechanism (for example, it > allows Widgets to also use the Google Wave Gadgets API), or by acting > as a proxy. For example, it leverages Apache Shindig (Incubating) to > render OpenSocial gadgets. " > > > > OpenSocial does assume you have a social graph though (the activities and > > app data part of OpenSocial are optional, though the platform is more > > attractive if you offer those too), so you could either take Shindig's > > approach and assume that the Wookie users will implement the social data > > interface classes them selves and connect it up to their existing social > > data, and/or you could include Social Site which provides that for you .. > > with some clever crafting supporting both use-cases shouldn't be to bad > > though. > > It is my (possibly incorrect) understanding that Wookie does not, at > present, provide a social graph. I do not believe this to be within > scope of Wookie, given the domain it was developed in (virtual > learning environments (VLE)) I would imagine someone wanting the > social graph would leverage the user data in the VLE. It would be > great to see collaboration between Social Site and Wookie to provide > an alternative means of providing a social graph, but bear in mind > that the W3c Widget spec does not concern itself with social graphs. > So I'm not sure whether this would be considered in scope or not. > Perhaps one of the project team can comment. > > Of course, if someone wants to see this kind of enhancement there's > nothing stopping the patches being supplied. > > > Google Wave Gadgets is a different beast entirely, they're basically just > > the same gadgets as from OpenSocial, but without the real time Wave > server > > behind it that drives the real time data state changes it doesn't seem to > > make a lot of sense to support it in a portal type project, and pulling > in a > > complete communications platform might be outside of Wookie's project > scope. > > Google Wave is not as similar to Open Social as it may seem. Open > Social gadgets are single user widgets. When you add a widget to your > page you own it. A Wave gadget is not a single user widget. When > someone adds it to a wave *all* users with access to that wave have > access to it. There is no concept of a social graph. You either have > access to it or you don't, who your friends are does not change the > way the gadget works for you (I guess you could have a social gadget > in a wave, but that's going a step further). This isn't quite accurate. OpenSocial doesn't require any notion of a single person owning something, and in the case of many products the 'friend graph' is not even a persistent entity at all (wave is a good example of such). Really, the relationship between users of the gadget is arbitrary. In the case of wave (the product), the wave itself 'owns' the gadget, whereas in a product like myspace, the owner of the profile page 'owns' the gadget. In a product like Google Friend Connect, the page that embeds the gadget 'owns' it. > > > Wookie already implements the wave communications protocols, and, as > far as I am aware, is the only open source implementation of this API > at present. > > You point about potential confusion in which feature belongs to which > API is a valid one. I'd like to see Wookie provide W3C widget support > in the core and then provide everything else via an extension > mechanism. I'm pretty sure this is how the system is currently > designed, but I don't think the extensions are currently packaged > separately. > > Ross > > -- > Ross Gardler > > OSS Watch - supporting open source in education and research > http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org > >
