Ted Smith <[email protected]> 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
