The perils of federated protocols

Posted May 19, 2016 13:08 UTC (Thu) by javispedro (guest, #83660)
Parent article: The perils of federated protocols

So what kinds of "innovations" are people doing these days in order to justify going back to centralizing everything? Because the list of complains about XMPP looks basically the same as 10 years ago (which sadly describes very well the state of XMPP interoperability), and that does not seem to justify the argument that you need a cathedral model of development in order to promote innovation in a use case that hasn't really changed much in decades (much like email).

E.g. end to end decryption does not really require changes on the protocol (on the contrary; if you need to change the protocol it most probably means you're leaking information to the server).

The perils of federated protocols

Posted May 19, 2016 13:41 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (2 responses)

> Because the list of complains about XMPP looks basically the same as 10 years ago (which sadly describes very well the state of XMPP interoperability)

The funny thing about XMPP interoperability is that, it was the big players (most notably Google) that were the worst offenders -- For example, Google Talk was subtly incompatible with the Jingle spec and reference implementation that Google itself authored.

Long Live The Prosperous Federation, So Say We All!!!

Posted May 26, 2016 3:33 UTC (Thu) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link] (1 responses)

For some reason the Florence song "Ship To Wreck" comes to mind. Or the old phrase "embrace, extend, extinguish". I of course (if you know my writings) believe it is a bizarre socio-stupidity thing. There are plenty of those all around us. Specifically, with the FCC's 10-201 original net neutrality, they promulgated the fantasy that the internet was a place of true free speech empowerment, where basic communication from each node was possible, regardless of the local network's preference for types of content or application or device. Google and other large 'cloud' players understand well that their 'cloud' profits are threatened by decentralized and open alternatives (in an environment where network neutrality ensures the ability to operate a server at home without getting written permission from a 'gatekeeper' (aka ISP)). I think this has resulted in some bizarre home-server-persecution propaganda campaign that ties in with Hillary Clinton and Edward Snowden and official government coverups. I know, I'll pretend to put on a tinfoil hat and go away now. Enjoy your taboos, Good Luck.

Long Live The Prosperous Federation, So Say We All!!!

Posted May 26, 2016 11:13 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> Google and other large 'cloud' players understand well that their 'cloud' profits are threatened by decentralized and open alternatives (in an environment where network neutrality ensures the ability to operate a server at home without getting written permission from a 'gatekeeper' (aka ISP)).

I don't see this at all. There is real value in a third party providing services for folks who can't be bothered to do it themselves -- and I say this as someone who chooses to run his own.

The home-server-persecution bit is largely ISP driven because it breaks their asymmetric download-heavyish models they've based their pricing on. That, and the sad fact that most home systems' "servers" are really just spam bots and sources of various forms of malware.