[Freedombox-discuss] Is / Is Not

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On 11-06-09 at 08:32am, Stefano Maffulli wrote:
> Hello folks
> 
> one thing I believe is missing from the list is addressbook/calendar 
> syncing, a different beast than backing up data. Here is the use case 
> that made me think of this:
> 
>         as a user I want to find my friends that use FreedomBox social 
>         capabilities (chat/messaging, voip, blogging, picture sharing 
>         etc) therefore expanding my network.
> 
> I figured that the fist step to find your friend would be to upload 
> your addressbook to the Freedombox. The software on the box would then 
> scout the network in order to find your friends.
> 
> This is different than simply backing up the addressbook because of 
> the next use case:
> 
>         as a user I want to have my addressbook updated directly by my 
>         friends with their latest pictures, email addresses and other 
>         data that they decide to share with me though Freedombox
>         
>         
> The syncing of calendar has similar use cases. If you want I can 
> elaborate on that too.
> 
> Does this make sense?

Makes very good sense to me.

I believe such scenarios are best solved using semweb technologies - 
i.e. FOAF, WebID and RDF.

A few tools in Debian supports semweb already:

  virtuoso-server
  samizdat

Virtuoso seems too heavyweight in my brief testing.  I haven't tried 
Samizdat but fear it to be too heavyweight also (package description 
mentions that its RDF backend requires Postgres).  I am currently 
packaging Perl semweb libraries and 4store, a lightweight RDF backend.

No shiny user-ready applications on that front yet, however.

For those feeling comfortable using PHP, drupal6 also support some RDF.  
I believe, however, that it provides only building blocks for 
_presenting_ RDF data, not high-level tools like a WebID service or 
authentication against a WebID service offered from others.


 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 836 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/attachments/20110609/2ee66dc0/attachment.pgp>