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The problem with a lot of federated platforms (I’m thinking of diaspora, secure scuttlebutt, mastodon etc) is that whole they do provide a way for data to be ea

by woah 8y ago

The problem with a lot of federated platforms (I’m thinking of diaspora, secure scuttlebutt, mastodon etc) is that whole they do provide a way for data to be easily synchronized and replicated, they never answer the question of who is ultimately going to store the data and why. So you end up with a “temporary” list of servers for new users to sign up with, which become centralized in their own right.

gregknicholson 8y ago
SSB is distinct from Diaspora and Mastodon in this respect. It's decentralised rather than federated (pub servers are just peers with a public address). SSB's answer to this question is: your friends are going to store your data, because they want to read it themselves. You are going to store your friends' data, because you want to pass it on to your other friends.
- woah 8y ago
  Actually, I'm mostly basing this on SSB, since it is the only one of these three I've used seriously, and I've followed its development since when it was just Dominic Tarr and Paul Frazee in an IRC chat. The system has gotten a lot more complex since the early days, and although I no longer know all the internals, it seems that the pub servers are pretty integral to its operation, and you can't get someone onto the system without one. I agree that an SSB-like system with pub servers removed and replaced by STUN/TURN servers which would only facilitate WebRTC would not have this problem. Just to be clear, the reason for this is that STUN/TURN servers are so lightweight and have very little to do with the actual operation of the system, so they could be put on a list on the main website and supported by very small donations. Then again, like you said, one could describe such a system as "decentralized", not "federated". I also suspect it would have performance characteristics that many users would not like.

by woah 8y ago

gregknicholson 8y ago

SSB is distinct from Diaspora and Mastodon in this respect. It's decentralised rather than federated (pub servers are just peers with a public address). SSB's answer to this question is: your friends are going to store your data, because they want to read it themselves. You are going to store your friends' data, because you want to pass it on to your other friends.

woah 8y ago
Actually, I'm mostly basing this on SSB, since it is the only one of these three I've used seriously, and I've followed its development since when it was just Dominic Tarr and Paul Frazee in an IRC chat. The system has gotten a lot more complex since the early days, and although I no longer know all the internals, it seems that the pub servers are pretty integral to its operation, and you can't get someone onto the system without one. I agree that an SSB-like system with pub servers removed and replaced by STUN/TURN servers which would only facilitate WebRTC would not have this problem. Just to be clear, the reason for this is that STUN/TURN servers are so lightweight and have very little to do with the actual operation of the system, so they could be put on a list on the main website and supported by very small donations. Then again, like you said, one could describe such a system as "decentralized", not "federated". I also suspect it would have performance characteristics that many users would not like.