So Glowing Fish sez to me, he sez...
So I am thinking of e2, and the e2izer. The biggest problem with e2 is
the server bill, and it may happen that e2 eventually goes down if Hemos
stops paying the bill.
But there is really no reason why e2 has to all be on one server. e2 could
be split up between hundreds or thousands of servers. The e2 program could turn
into a protocol, where certain webpages, all on different servers, kept a
header that kept track of reputation, C! and stuff...there perhaps could be one
main page where the names of new nodes and users were kept, but it wouldn't be
accessed all that much, and would take up a lot less bandwidth. I suppose
authentication and quality control would be a lot harder, but it could probably
still be done.
What do you think? Is it possible?
So I sez to Glowing Fish, I sez...
Yes, I think it's pretty possible - from the perspective of nodes and users and such. It would fundamentally change the nature of e2, of course. :)
But it could be done using trust metrics and the like. The Proper Way to do it, in my opinion, would be to release an e2.net node package that would obey some certain XML-RPC based protocols. These would be put up by people with servers and bandwidth, and connect into the e2 network, acting like nodes in a gnutella network would. Catbox messages could be passed by similar means.
Advantages of the distributed model:
- Nate et al would remain gods. Your high rankingness on an important server would remain useful!
- Make yourself uber god on your own server. It doesn't matter. If your server is not respected then you get nothing.
- Trusted content can be easily filtered from the untrusted and backed up and passed around.
- Bandwidth et al becomes less of a problem, though updates and such could become Uglier. This might be alleviated by having some client side logic to make searches and stuff more intelligent. The trick is to make sure the distribution bandwidth used is less costly than the server bandwidth that would be used.
- You could use whatever language you liked s'long as it obeyed the protocol. PHP, PERL, Brainfuck, C, J2EE, whatever.
Disadvantages of the distributed model:
More complex to the user. For consistency, things like chings! and votes would have to be managed per node and such. On different nodes you might have a different level and different attendant votes and chings. Messages wouldn't be global - they would pass between a few nodes, probably, or else there would inherently be more chatterboxes.
Fragmentation of E2. This is already the case, but this could exacerbate the problem. The possibility of not all nodes following the rules and such could also be a problem. This could be fixed by using the trust metric but might still be a problem.
More difficult to manage. Gods (unless they're granted permission on a per-site basis by the site hosts) can't just change stuff.
So then E2 sez to me, they sez...
I thought this might be interesting to the edev people, and perhaps others among us. Is it worthwhile to try to make E2 distributed? Is it feasible?
I don't think it's possible or desirable at this stage to make ecore distributed. But could we make the application - Everything2 itself - live in more than one place at once?
The benefits are tremendous, especially if we make it clever enough that people can extend it in different ways. Anyone could implement a method of having user data on their own node. Presumably the best method would win. Order could be enforced by the gods, of course... Fringe servers with little content could be used for weird dev stuff.
The possibilities of this could be endless.
What do you think?
ponder says re On Making E2 Distributed: You ask "What do you think?" Where should people post replies? There is a danger of the node becoming a full blown GTKY discussion. BTW I want to reply.
/msg s_alanet or e-mail me at <bgarney@purdue.edu>. My experience with edev nodes leads me to believe that the gods are not angered by what might be considered GTKY behaviour on them, but let's not tempt fate, k? Bad write ups, here as elsewhere, are sure to be blasted. E-mail/msg me first, then if it is warranted, add write up here.
Thanks,
s_alanet