[Freedombox-discuss] "What's a Distributed Social Network?" -- the comic

[J David Eisenberg]

On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 4:36 PM, Jake Emerson
<jakeemerson at spatial.maine.edu> wrote:
> The "distributed" term probably caught hold with SETI at Home program that
> loads of us ran as a screen saver back in the day (or still do?). That
> program had a goal of breaking the task of searching through cosmic radio
> signal data in to bite size pieces. Idle machines masticated the small
> pieces, and sent their results back to a central DB. One goal/program split
> across many computers is distributed.
>
> With peer-to-peer networks things get even trickier. We've seen loads of
> folks talking about distributed computing or networking in that context.
> However, a P2P network (one with no central node, anyway) has a
> decentralized network topology that *enables* distributed computation. The
> network itself is decentralized, but it can help make distributed stuff
> happen. With plug servers we aren't trying to compute any one thing, we're
> just setting up the (mesh/ad hoc/variegated) network.
>
> "Decentralized network" probably evokes an accurate picture in people's
> minds, and that could help tell the story. Just a thought to chew on while
> the project is still young.
>
> Cheers,
> Jake
>

I see your point, as well as Thomas's. The comic definitely covers the
decentralized nature of the network, as well as privacy and
security.The comic doesn't cover the issue of empowerment at all.

The best thing would be for Roberta to add some verbiage at some point
about "distributed, and, more important, decentralized."  Not sure
which page that would go on, or if you'd have to re-work the art.
Script changes are easy. Art changes are difficult. Of course, the
comic is Creative Commons share-alike, so it's open to changes.

I just get the feeling that the phrase "distributed social network" is
out there in the wild, and it may not be easy to get it reined in.

> On 02/24/2011 06:08 PM, Thomas Lord wrote:
>>
>> Re:
>>
>>> Yes, "decentralized" does get the point across
>>> much better, doesn't it?
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> A minor issue - and I really hope I don't
>> start a language fight but: on the meanings of
>> "distributed" and "decentralized" ...
>>
>>
>> I like to encourage the usage described below.
>> If I do accidentally start a language fight
>> let me announce in advance that I immediately
>> surrender and quit that fight :-)   You are
>> right, everyone who disagrees.    Here we go:
>>
>>
>> "distributed" means that a computation is
>> spread across multiple hosts.   "distributed"
>> is a strictly technical property of a
>> software system.   I'm a little fuzzy on exactly
>> what we mean by "host" but, you get the idea.
>>
>>
>> "decentralized" means that there is no central
>> control (legal, social, economic, technical) of
>> a computing system.
>>
>> For example:   Amazon's cloud services and Google's
>> various services are "distributed" but they are
>> "centralized".
>>
>> Another example:  The MIT AI lab used to host
>> an old ITS (Incompatible Time Sharing operating
>> system) machine to which anyone who who heard
>> of it could obtain an account and easily obtain
>> the equivalent of "root".   That system was not
>> distributed - for it ran on a single machine -
>> but it was, for the most part, decentralized.  (MIT
>> retained central control over when exactly to pull
>> the plug, of course.)
>>
>> It's maybe too wordy but it is more accurate if we
>> talk about:
>>
>>     distributed, decentralized social networking
>>
>> to convey that no one host holds the whole thing (distributed)
>> and that no one party is in control (decentralized).
>>
>> Of course, distributed and decentralized alone are
>> not all that we really mean.   After all, the cell phone
>> and land line telephony networks are, so to speak, both
>> distributed and decentralized but they are also in some
>> sense untrustworthy.  While decentralized, nevertheless
>> power over them is concentrated.  Though distributed,
>> not just anyone can add a new node.
>>
>> We could try adding more adjectives:
>>
>>     distributed, decentralized, personally emopwering
>>     social networking
>>
>> Ick.
>>
>> Or maybe just stick with "distributed, decentralized" and
>> combine that with Eben Moglen's formulation:
>>
>>     We replace that social networking functionality
>>     but *you* control the server logs (that pertain to
>>     you).
>>
>> ("What's a server log?" -- asks dad :-)
>>
>> -t
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 2011-02-24 at 14:36 -0800, J David Eisenberg wrote:
>>>
>>> On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 2:02 PM, Jake Emerson
>>> <jakeemerson at spatial.maine.edu>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi David,
>>>> The comic at http://dsn-test.com/comic is great. Just curious, though,
>>>> why
>>>> did you choose the term "distributed" instead of "decentralized?"
>>>
>>> Because I started writing the script shortly after Diaspora issued its
>>> first release, and their blog says: "Diaspora aims to be a distributed
>>> network..." That was the term that I saw more often in news articles,
>>> and it seemed to be in more common usage.
>>>
>>> BTW, I just did a Google search for "distributed social networks"
>>> (about 41,800,000 results) vs. "decentralized social networks" (about
>>> 445,000 results).
>>>
>>> Yes, "decentralized" does get the point across much better, doesn't it?
>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Jake
>>>>
>>> [snip]
>>>
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>>
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