On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 10:17 PM, Blaine Cook <[email protected]> wrote: > On 24 March 2010 17:06, Sylvan Heuser <[email protected]> wrote: >> As I see it, we have two approaches between we must decide. >> >> The pure P2P approach: >> *snip* >> >> The network of independent servers with small user groups approach: >> *snip* > > I'd second the idea that there are hybrid approaches that are readily > possible. I think even in the hybrid case, you need a shared > addressing space. The reason you need a simple, shared addressing > space is so that people can add each-other on contact lists. Once you > have that, then two people who meet at a bar or on a bus can exchange > contact information.
I second this. You can mix hub&spoke with P2P. In fact, this is what we aim to do in onesocialweb and is straightforwad using XMPP. My identity could either be: Hub&spoke: [email protected] In this case I delegate to the server the job of managing my profile, etc... P2P: [email protected]/me In this case, the work is delegated to a resource (could be a bot, my laptop, a mobile phone..). The server only acts as a router. The good thing with this last point is that you can use any existing XMPP account tomorrow with OSW. And yes, you could even drop the /me part and have XMPP Disco take care of telling the other end that your social networking stuff is handled by a resource called /me. So it is transparent to the user. Not sure how this would translate in a Webfinger/WebID world...
