6 ms·
I'll never completely trust a software product, especially communication ones. However, I'll blindly put all my money on protocols. A protocol is indestructible
by adtac 8y ago
I'll never completely trust a software product, especially communication ones. However, I'll blindly put all my money on protocols. A protocol is indestructible, it's just a document. It doesn't need VC funding to keep servers alive, it doesn't need advertisements, it doesn't need ridiculous growth benchmarks, it doesn't need anything. The beauty of protocols is that you're free to write your own client and server to have end-to-end control. IRC is a perfect example. I can't count the amount of client and server software, but they all interact with each almost perfectly.
That's why email will continue to exist forever. And that's why email is so versatile.
- perfmode 8y agoa protocol is merely an agreement, no?
- Reelin 8y agoThat's the point though. Anyone is free to implement it, anyone can interoperate with it, and anyone can publish improvements to it. Dependence on a protocol instead of a service or piece of software directly facilitates decentralization and user freedom.
- skybrian 8y agoI'd hardly say email works perfectly. It's very lossy due to spam prevention. Running your own email server that's trusted by others isn't easy. Whether data is encrypted or not is hit and miss. It's less terrible than some other alternatives, that's all.
- cirgue 8y agoThere are organizations and tools to solve those problems, and when they fail there’s always an incentive for something else to take its place while maintaining interoperability. The key point of protocols is that they richly reward diversity.
- hyperpallium 8y agoEfficient implementation of a protocol can be patent encumbered. While a protocol exists forever, implementations mightn't, and there are many failed protocols. But can endure through network effects.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- erikb 8y agoIt is theoretically possible though, that if you find a usecase for a protocol that happened to be not used for a hundred years, that you implement it and then use it. Not even the document about the protocol is necessary if you remember it well enough. And a part of the self-responsible philosophy is also that "there is no implementation" is not even an excuse. As long as there are free programming languages and affordable computers (I.e. a raspberry pi) then you can very well create your own implementation. It might take years to even start due to the requirements to learn programming, but it's not impossible at all.
- hyperpallium 8y agoI meant: a communications protocol that no one else uses is as useful as one telephone.
- erikb 8y agoMore like a notebook. You could for instance use the email format to store your diary entries, or a todo list, or an index of useful links, etc. even if nobody else uses the standard anymore.
- Razengan 8y ago> I'll never completely trust a software product, especially communication ones. Since being frustrated with all the current major social networks, I've been playing around with an idea for a semi-decentralized/semi-federated chat service (like IRC but not quite), but it's just in my head for now. Can someone recommend any sites where one can put up the seed/initial draft for an idea for others to collaborate on and add to? GitHub?
- gmueckl 8y agoYour post is a pretty good description of XMPP in my eyes. What would you make different from that?
- XorNot 8y agoXMPP is pretty awful for practical communications these days. It can, with enough extensions and clients, do all the things other protocols do, but by and large weird stuff is broken. Pure communications protocols are starting to feel like a losing game for me these days - the world is so carved up and walled again that I really need someone to build a new Trillian that instead of speaking protocols, hooks directly into the UI widgets on my desktop and phone so unify my view of communications and let me inject features (the only one I want being OTR messaging and I guess let's bring Zmodem back so we can stuff binaries to each other).
- gmueckl 8y agoThe state of XMPP seems no better or worse than that of any other open protocol that has been implemented by multiple parties over several decades. They have all become pretty bad with all kinds of weird ways in which things were tacked onto them.
- Boulth 8y ago> XMPP is pretty awful for practical communications these days. It can, with enough extensions and clients, do all the things other protocols do, but by and large weird stuff is broken. It is practical if you use modern clients. For example I replaced Hangouts with Conversations.im for all my family members and they are very happy with it.
- acct1771 8y agoMatrix protocol is the first thing that comes to mind, here.