Nice post, it covers a lot, I'm not yet sure if it covers everything, but very good for some brainstorming. As an exercise I'll see if linked data can cover all these use case, with maybe examples.
2010/5/2 Hellekin O. Wolf <[email protected]> > A User Perspective of GNU Social > > This text follows a brainstorming session that occurred yesterday at a > park nearby in Amsterdam, with elinvi and psy, from lorea.cc. > > It aims at providing a non-technical view of an idealized GNU Social > application from the point of view of a sample user, in order to > broaden the reflexion on GNU Social beyond self-promotion of various > projects, and out of a purely technical scope. You need to read it > once entirely before replying, otherwise you might get lost into > details where the idea is to provide a draft of a big picture. > > 1.0 - Universal Access > > 1.1 - Device Independent > > My account should be accessible via any device I happen to use: my > personal computer, a public (insecure) computer, a telephone, etc. > Let's say your account is a FOAF. It's immediately accessible to anything that has HTTP (which is a very broad spectrum). If you dont have HTTP anything that has HTTP can relay it to you (brpader still). > > 1.2 - Platform Independent > > Whether it is from a GNU/Linux OS, an Android, a Mac OS or a Windows, > I should be able to access my account. > Again all these have HTTP access. I tend to think of HTTP as a universal API. > > 1.3 - Trust-Based Access Restrictions > > When I'm using my personal computer, I expect to have the optimal > security features: I know that I'm not spying on my own keystrokes, > that I have my personal GPG key or SSL certificate locally and I can > trust them. Hence, in that case, I get full access to all my > functionalities and data. > FOAF+SSL can do this > > But if I'm connecting from a public computer, I cannot give it the > same trust: I'm not using my secret keys there, nor do I know if the > computer is logging my keystrokes. In that case, I expect the > application to ask me for a password, or an out-of-band challenge to > grant me potentially harmful functionality (changing password) or data > (whole contact list, personal history, etc.). > I think this can be solved, but we need to go through the details. > > In that case, I expect the application to grant me a one-time access > to the account, maybe using OTP or similar one-time authentication > mechanism, that would at least ensure backward and forward secrecy for > that account. > Right. I need to read up on OTP I think :) > > 2.0 - Seamless Contact List > > 2.1 - Protocol Independent > > When I want to send a message to my Mom, I don't care if she's using > Facebook or XMPP or IRC or email or her phone. Although it might make > sense technically to know what service is used, the user just doesn't > want to know. The application should hide all that and provide a > seamless contact list. > Agree, but if you dont have HTTP you need to relay it to the other protocols. There is often significant build time associated with bridges / interfacing. One day it will probably all come together though. Perhaps we need a protocol 'layer cake' with HTTP at the bottom, and XMPP above it etc. > > 2.2 - Support Free > > So, if I have "Mom" in my contact list, she would have an email > account, an XMPP account and a phone number. Even a snail mail address > could work, provided the application is hooked up to a postal mail > delivery service. > That's fine, it's all in your FOAF. > > Imagine I want to send her a message on that video I made last > evening. It comes with a comment, and the video file attached. When I > hit "send", the system can match my preferences for that contact > (rather xmpp than sms, rather html mail than text, etc.), the > perceived urgency for that message (it's urgent, I need her to approve > it before i can propagate it to the rest of the family), and according > to my contact's delivery settings (as I'm her son, my messages are > doubled to email and SMS, but as she's hiking in the mountains, only > email delivery is available at that point). > This is a very good use of data exchange. I can look up my FOAF, and see what possibilities i have to send, then use my rule based system to use the one I want. I may not even have to interact with my computer for this decision to be made. RIF, N3 or programmed 'handlers' can do this. > > And the message is sent through the different media, according to > simple rules: the message being too long for SMS, the title is sent > along with a link to the rest of the message, including the video. The > email receives the whole thing, except the video, 240MB, is not > attached, but linked. Etc. > As above. > > 2.3 - Synchronous And Asynchronous > > My contact list should cover both synchronous (e.g. chat) and > asynchronous (e.g. email) contacts, with easy merge capability (the > machine might not know how to recognize Hellekin from HK or HOW or > Hellekin O. Wolf, but the user will know and make the link. So, the > contact list would include a unique identifier across the network > (what PSYC calls the Uniform Name Location AKA UNL, or UNI, or > Uniform), the different associated endpoints (online services, IRC, > XMPP, PSYC, email, phone, etc) including sending/receiving rules for > that contact, with sensible defaults (huge attachments stripped from > emails, no attachment to the phone, "preferred" mean of contact, etc.) > UNI seems to be reinventing a little. Why not use URIs which are already established, instead of a new system that might take a decade to reach the same penetration? There's a number of ways to communicate - Push - Pull - Full duplex - Streaming - Syncing (e.g. dropbox) - Notifcations based (e.g. I send you a UDP packet as notification and you come and collect data from me) > > 3.0 - Seamless Data > > 3.1 Local & Remote Are Obsolete > > I don't want to "synchronize" my bookmarks. Instead, I want to access > them all at once, from Delicious or from my local browser, from my FTP > server and that other app where I share bookmarks with my friends. > > I don't want to "upload" or "download" files. Instead, I want to be > able to select files on my local computer and drag'n'drop them to my > chat window so that a torrent is automagically created and shared > among that group. > See above > > 3.2 - Raw Data vs. File Formats > > People don't care about the file format, it's a techie issue. What we > want is seamless integration of raw data. If I stumble upon a text > online, I want to be able to select part of it, include it in some > "box" and share that box with others. For example, that could take the > form of an RDF description of all the sources used to compose that new > document. But at this point, from the user perspective, the technical > implementation doesn't make sense. > > That approach breaks free from a paradigm that has been dominating the > computing world so far, that exposes the data type, and especially the > file format, which is completely irrelevant to the user: she doesn't > deal with MP3 or OGG, with JPEG or PNG, with MKV or DIVX, but with > sound, images and video. > > I think the current approach to exposing technical details to the user > inherits from the legacy of proprietary software, where a proprietary > format appears as a brand, a differentiator on the market. When > dealing with free software, the file format is only a technical > fact/constraint, and does not bring any value-added to the user. > Right idea. It's all about top-down data design. I send you the data, and you work out what it is, and what to do with it. APIs are bottom up data driven design, which obviously limit freedom to the functions it allows. There's a class of interaction that are universal APIs ... HTTP / RDF falls into this category, OData, GData and Core Data all are trying to explore the same space. > > 4.0 - Memory, Intimacy, Privacy > > 4.1 - The Social Network as Extended Memory > > Within the vision of McLuhan that tools are extensions of the human > (e.g. a hammer is an extension of the hand, a shoe an extension of the > foot), and John Licklider's (and others) view of the computer as a > mind-amplifier tool, we can consider the computer as an extension of > the mind. It helps us keep track of a lot of details that our memory > would filter out, such as precise dates, re-occurrences of events, etc. > > One of the most private things is memory. Humans have a right to keep > that to themselves, and in fact, what's on your mind is inaccessible > to anyone else unless you chose to share it. > > The explosion of social networking makes available a lot of that to > other people, including services that you're using to distribute your > private data to your friends. Until now, the drive to share has got > the priority over the drive to keep things private: the tools provided > makes it easy to share, and most social networking services rely on > the possibility to aggregate data and filter it to expose patterns, > and create detailed profiles of a person's behavior, that has a lot of > value for marketers (and intelligence agencies). > Lots of work being done on provenance, but it's a young area. > > 4.2 - The Right To, and Necessity of Intimacy > > Most people don't care too much about privacy, as they're told that if > they don't do anything wrong, they don't have anything to fear or > hide, and that if you have something to hide, it's probably because > it's wrong. Of course, this is a fallacious argument. If you look at > it closely, you'll find out that the people promoting transparency of > your data are the first ones to use secrecy. Transparency of public > and market data is important, respectively, for democracy and fair > competition. But opacity of private data not only protects the > citizens from abusive governments, but also proceed from a natural > need for privacy and intimacy (think about toilets.) > > 4.3 - Building Memory for the Future > > When you don't have control over your data, you take the risk of > losing your intimacy, as well as your memory. The time passed in front > of a computer, or online, is growing. It's important to realize that > for many, sharing that intimacy online also builds their memory for > the future, to share with their grand-kids... > > That aspect of social networking, that you open the intimacy of your > mind to others, should be emphasized. > Agree with almost everything, but sceptical about he UNI system (though you may be right). What's missing? I'm missing some of the 'linked' data principles. I send you some data, but it should also link to other data to make it that more interesting. One of the most common social activities is link sharing ... mashups and meshups become more powerful over time. Read / Write web -- I think this is covered by what you post, but not in huge detail. A top down data driven "data wiki" is powerful enough to do anything you will ever need. It's just a case of programming around it. Caching / REST seems not to have been covered, but that's not necessarily the end of the world I think maybe the acid test of a system is that you dont even know you are using it. Most people dont know the difference between the web and the internet, 'it just works'. This is due to some profound architectural decisions that put linking and identifiers at the heart of things. Again, it's so simple, you dont even notice it most of the time. Conclusion, great post I think you've covered most aspects, and some philosophical ones that are very interesting. I think we can build this all with FOAF, and more too. It's just a case of putting all the pieces together in the right order! :)
