[Freedombox-discuss] Why plug servers and not smart phones?

[Eugen Leitl]

On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 08:20:25PM +0200, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> > Sorry, not parsing you here. FBX is P2P infrastructure, and as such 
> > the only reason why FBX is not a good match for mobile alternative 
> > Android distros is because there is no Android debian project.
> 
> Incorrect.  FreedomBox is a federated server, not a P2P system.

"Federated server" doesn't resolve into anything particularly
useful on my end so far. Is this about the FBX with a swarm
of other FBX on the Internet appearing as a single server from
the the user systems' point of view?

>From the FBX's point of view, what are the residual dependencies
on centralist architecture? Ok, it's a Debian project, but
depositories can be substituted by a self-hosted environment
(BitTorrent, or related swarm delivery). It does use DNS, but
it also uses hidden services, and can span up own namespace.

What else is there that needs not to be there?
 
> P2P is applications installed on user-facing devices, talking directly 
> to similar applications on other user-facing devices.
> 
> FreedomBox is a server - i.e. applications (services) talk to similar 
> applications and to *other* applications (clients) installed on 
> user-facing devices.
> 
> Both FreedomBox and P2P are different from centralized servers, but in 
> different ways: P2P puts all burden on the user-facing devices and 
> requires redesigned protocols, whereas FreedomBox allows continued use 
> of same client tools and protocols, just stretches federation to an 
> extreme one-network-per-user structure.

Ok, that makes more sense.