[Freedombox-discuss] FOAF developers taking FreedomBox into their equation

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 04:20:46PM +0100, bertagaz at ptitcanardnoir.org 
wrote:
>On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 02:11:59PM +0000, Clint Adams wrote:
>>
>> I understand wanting to do things half-assed to harness momentum. 
>> What I am concerned about is a future point in time where we have to 
>> throw out the entire AAA infrastructure and replace it with something 
>> else.  If no one is working on these other complex layers, can we be 
>> assured that that will not be necessary?
>
>I've been quite scared to read here people talking about using dyndns 
>service, so I did some scroogle on the freedombox DNS issue.
>
>Haven't found a lot of things yet, apart from an old app [1] that is a 
>open source implementation of dynamic DNS service.
>
>It's note really maintained anymore, but the code is here still here 
>waiting some revival, or rewrite.
>
>It uses a mysql database as backend, so maybe one way to have this 
>service decentralized might be to change its backend for some other 
>database like couchdb.
>
>Then every freedombox would have that service running, would register 
>its new IP to this self-hosted service, which would push the change in 
>the couchdb. Or maybe just some freedombox that did agree to run this 
>public service.
>
>It's just a basic idea that is quite unclear in my brain and need 
>probably a lot of thinking and testing. So if you have ideas yourself, 
>please comment. :)


Well, since you posted this to the FOAF thread, let me take up the 
challenge of thinking in that direction ;-)

This "some other database like couchdb" could be "RDF storage" and "some 
freedombox that did agree to run this" could be "certain context 
mutually declared using FOAF".

From a user POV, if I add my "FreedomBox hackers" context to the "report 
internet address to these contexts" service, and you add your "Debian 
freaks" context to the "be a lighthouse for these contexts" feature, 
then you and anyone of those you've categorized as "Debian freaks" can 
find my FreedomBox.

Technically, I tell my FreedomBox to do a FOAF "ping" (i.e. a 
lightweight RESTful single https request) to a range of FreedomBoxes 
including yours, each time an ip of my FreedomBox changes.

Technically, you tell your FreedomBox to run a DNS(-like) server 
responding only authorized peers, extending the hierarchically internet 
DNS with a .dynamic TLD, and injecting into this new TLD the new IP(s) 
of same trusted peers whenever they request it updated.

The RDF storage could be 4store, packaged for Debian a few days ago 
(still pending approval from NEW queue but already available in my 
debian.jones.dk repository for anyone wanting to play with it.

We still need to figure out how to actually setup WebID, but should 
already be possible to try put together scripts to tie above pieces 
together.

If FOAF is deemed unsuitable for FreedomBox, then those scripts should 
be possible to adapt to whatever other core friendship broking mechanism 
is picked/invented instead.


 - Jonas

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

  [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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