A company that was the cheerleader of the open web is rapidly turning its back on every single open standard they once championned. Their latest move, announced yesterday at Google I/O, appears to be closing XMPP server-to-server federation. It is only a natural next step in a process...
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There's a deep reason why email is the only successful decentralized network. And also the worst regarding tho spam, ease of use and problems.
a) MS do not allow GTalk = Skype
b) but MS wants xmpp to talk from Outlook to GTalk to promote Office 365
We can say that they honestly tried. They tried really hard.
But it is simply not working. They are limiting themselves, they can't evolve the way they want.
I'm not saying that it is "good", I'm just saying that it is understandable and very predictable. I remember saying in one of my conference where someone told me that "XMPP was successful at taking over MSN" : "It's not XMPP, it's Google. The day Google drops XMPP, we will discover that only a tiny minority cares about XMPP."
I wish I was wrong…
(preparing a long blogpost on the subject ;-) )
If that's true, than I don't understand all the whining and crying is all about. Yeah it sucks when a service is closed down but that happens everyday. Why is it such a big deal when Google happens to do it - since *we* don't need them anyway.
The XMPP community did, bending over backwards to accommodate them. A vast amount of serious effort has gone into reworking S2S authentication, for example, specifically to address Google's requests to make supporting Google Apps domains securely simpler for them.
Jingle was initially designed by Google, but yet they never implemented the latest standards as they were developed - and yet this was their area of greatest interaction.
I've even heard that some of PEP - another set of XMPP extensions they never bothered to implement - was guided by Google so they could deploy it.
Google have been known to use open standards, but they're rubbish at contributing to them.
MSN was actually XMPP without federation
Facebook uses XMPP for messaging
But federation and interop are important, just as Larry Page said, and users will be feeling that loss - and are already.
It's sad that a generation of people have been deluded into thinking google is somehow a force for good. They are blatent patent trolls-- suing Apple (via Motorola) for standards essential patents, which started the whole patent war (Apple sued them in defense)... which is pretty ironic given that android is a ripoff of Apple's IP... all the while Google's publically running an anti-IP campaign (Because as an IP theif they want to get away with it.)
Yet people ignore the fact that Google is the patent troll that started the whole thing and delude themselves into thinking that Google is "right" ... becuase they want to own an android phone without guilt.
At this point, I have no sympathy for people who are so deluded that they think google is anything but evil. They have been evil (and uninnovative) for a long time.
This is not surprising given they make their money by violating people's privacy.
But the deluded fools think "oh this service from google is free, they must be benevolent!"
For email I really enjoy using fastmail.fm
Only $30 a year for having your own domain's email, else free.
Hope that's a useful tip for people.
Ian
I am working on a system to easily self-host all the services you might need from your own home on a Raspberry Pi. All this with a simple graphical interface, making server management available for the masses. Check it out at https://ark-os.org :)
Are you nuts? Lots of our most successful networks have always been decentralized! You can't seriously be suggesting that systems like Usenet, IRC, Bittorrent, XMPP, or the internet itself (!!) aren't successful.
I think the problem is not that Google is abandoning these protocols. (Lots of companies never bothered to use them in the first place, and we're not complaining about those guys.) The problem is they're talking out of both sides of their mouth.
From one side: open is great, Google is open, Google is better than our competitors *because* we're more open. From the other side: we're abandoning a bunch of the most popular open protocols because they're just not working for us (you claim).
I think it would be drastically different if they had said, hypothetically, "CalDav isn't flexible enough for the needs of Google Calendars, so we're proposing a new open standard, SuperCalSync, and inviting everybody to try it out with us". That would show that the existing protocol sucks (well, it kind of does!), but that they think openness can work. But they're not doing that.
I would *love* for Google to put out a press release that said: "We tried open source and open protocols. Nobody cares, and it holds us back. We're going to do everything behind closed doors from now on. Deal with it." Then at least they'd be honest.
I didn't see that assertion in these comments.
Fortunately, I haven't yet seen the "Google is just an advertising company" gem. There's still time, people!
This is something that has been in iOS for a long time. This underscored, for me, that Google's business model is not very conducive to open protocols in the long run.
Fascinating piece by the @guardian.co.uk giving a much needed context and perspective to the ongoing Syrian conflict.
"The origins of Syria's 'war by proxy' are therefore unmistakeable - the result of converging climate, oil and debt crises within a politically repressive state, the conflict's future continues to be at the mercy of rival foreign geopolitical interests in dominating the energy corridors of the Middle East and North Africa."
In case you haven't seen it, the new Daft Punk is available for streaming on ITunes. I'm just done with my first listening and I'm really disapointed. Based on the Collaborator serie teasers and the vibe of Get Lucky, I was hoping for a groovy, soulfull, funky, disco-house album. Unfortunate...
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BTW, my fav track is "Beyond".
Chris Hadfield is amazing. First he delighted us with his various science experiments, then he oversees an emergency EVA to fix an ammonia leak on board ISS, and finally he wraps his six month tour aboard the station with a wonderfull cover of Bowie. Some amazing pictures in there as well.
You can follow Commander Chris Hadfield him on twitter.
Et en plus c'est "made in Liège". Celà vient de chez re-store, en Neuvice.
Perfect for the low ceiling in the kitchen. Made in Liège at the Re-Store.
Smarter Objects from Fluid Interfaces on Vimeo.
Have a look at this video, and think about a future where you look through Glass instead of your tablet. Everyday objects overlayed by virtual interfaces visible through the digital lense.
Now we just need brain implents to make this even smoother and then we can drop the real world altogether :-)
Thanks to @karinslegers for sharing this.
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"In this course, we will provide an overview of current techniques for 3D localization, mapping and navigation that are suitable for quadcopters."
Awesome to have such a course available online together with all lectures in mp4 and notes. Perfect for #nodecopter enthusiats.
A presentation by Felix Geisendörfer (felixge.de) on programming parrot AR Drone with Node.js. Really exciting stuff, I'm looking forward to play with it.
"And I think here, for us at PayPal, it's just a question of whether Bitcoin will make its way to PayPal's funding instrument or not, and we're kind of thinking about it right now."
Woaw. Imagine being able to use BTC on any site already accepting Paypal, with all the bonus of merchant protection etc... It seems PayPal understands how much bitcoin could disrupt their business and are thinking how to best leverage it instead of fighting it. Brilliant.
Here is the video, the bitcoin comment is at the 2.55 mark.
Great summary by Tantek on our #indieweb achievements of the last days. Implementing federation with pingback and microformats is dead easy, when are you joining the conversation ?
Awesome little webapp that simulates a SLR camera. Great if you want to play and learn tweaking your iso/aperture/shutter.
The commenters on this post have done so from their own site, in an #indieweb spirit, and notifying my site via pingbacks. This enable a true, federated, two-way conversation in the open web.
No silos, no paywall, no control by a single entity or government. Pure freedom, at least as pure as emailing or calling someone.
I love it :) When are you joining the conversation ?
Featured in this picture are @aaronparecki.com, @tantek.com and @christopheducamp.com
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Next for me is to also support webmentions, and enable a 'in-reply-to' flow.
When people dismiss Bitcoins because they can’t think of how they’d use it, they’re missing the fact that Bitcoin is a platform, not a product in its own right.
The 3.5 inch Hard-drives, the personal computers, the mp3, were all examples of disruptive innovations. First dismissed because they seemed inferior, but in reality transforming a complete industry. A typical innovator dilemma.







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