personally for me, ecpecially with the recent whistleblowing about the nsa i see a real need for secure decentralized/federated communication platforms that are easy and attractive to use, if wiab could be run on everyones phone desktop or server it would allow the largest possible cross-section of people to adopt and use this great idea. i specifically say idea because that is what initially attracted to me about wiab when it became open source, it was cool tech that could be run by anyone (anyone technically inclined anyway).
as far as the future of wiab, it seems to me that a more p2p rather then client server approach could benefit wiab's adoption. That said i wonder if there is the man power for that, it may be a better idea to develop the ideas behind wiab further and once you have a larger developer base to try to refactor it. that said i think all it really takes is one or two obsessed coders to really make a difference. On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 4:28 PM, Michael MacFadden < michael.macfad...@gmail.com> wrote: > Dave, > > I guess the question I would ask before going down this road isŠ what is > the problem that you are currently seeing in WIAB that you would > attributed to either the OT Algorithm and/or its implementation? > > What problem are we trying to solve through option 1/2? > > ~Michael > > On 6/11/13 9:25 PM, "Dave" <w...@glark.co.uk> wrote: > > >Cool. Thanks Michael. > > > >I guess the reason I'm keen to understand the pros/cons is because it > >looks as though we're heading to a point where the wave community needs > >to figure out the direction for Apache wave and the wiab codebase > >(within appropriate [DISCUSS] and [VOTE] threads of course). Probably as > >part of the larger conversation that John Blossom started. > > > >I'm beginning to think we're talking about two discrete directions: > > > >1) The wave OT or protocol are broken & not fit for purpose. We should > >implement different OT and / or protocol which is (likely) incompatible > >with the existing implementations. Potentially this could involve > >junking the current wiab codebase, and implementing a new wave like > >platform (potentially on top of existing non-wiab code). > > > >2) Wave OT and protocol are good-enough for our immediate / mid-term > >desires, but the wiab implementations could be stronger. We want to > >focus on expanding the ecosystem - enabling different clients, > >simplifying federation, tidying the codebase. I.e. convert what we've > >got into a useful product. > > > >With enough resource, maybe we could aim for Apache wave to take both > >directions - expand the ecosystem now and work on long-term incompatible > >changes, but given the lack of an existing install base this might not > >be an ideal choice. > > > >Until recently, I assumed we were just heading for #2, but there's > >clearly some desire for #1, and some known weaknesses in Wave's current > >approach. > > > >Certainly OT state-of-the-art has moved on significantly since the wave > >implementation, but should wave be on the bleeding edge of OT? Or are > >our developers and community more focused on a slick (and feature rich) > >implementation of the core technology google demo'd a few years back? > > > >I've got lots of questions and very few answers, but hopefully we're > >getting more clarity on what we want/expect from this community. > > > >Dave > > > > > >On 11/06/13 19:41, Michael MacFadden wrote: > >> In a sense yes. In a P2P model there is no single canonical wave. All > >> the federated servers would have a copy of the wave. Any server that > >> drops out simply drops out. The isolated server could still server up > >>the > >> wave to its clients if it were still connected. Then when it comes > >>back, > >> it would rejoin the other federating servers. > >> > >> There are some intricacies here, but that is the main idea. > >> > >> ~M > >> > >> On 6/11/13 7:37 PM, "Dave" <w...@glark.co.uk> wrote: > >> > >>> On 11/06/13 18:48, Michael MacFadden wrote: > >>>> I have drafted up some ideas on a hybrid system. > >>>> Actually I have seen two approaches. One uses a natively P2P > >>>>protocol, > >>>> which then elects super nodes to act as "servers" in highly connected > >>>> clusters. > >>> Interesting - so this effectively would allow re-hosting of a wave if > >>> the original host goes off line? > >>> > >>> The underlying OT supports P2P style merging, and there are the > >>> efficiency advantages of having OneTrueHost for a given wave, but if > >>> that host goes offline the wave can be re-hosted elsewhere. > >>> > >>> Dave > >> > >> > > > > >
