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This is a follow up to my previous post: Integrate the feeling of community
deep into the desktop.

The Cloud
There is an attempt to bring together KDE and "The Cloud" [1]. Since the ideas
presented on the slides are really cool, only to provide the software for
e.g. accessing your private data on a server in the internet is only half the
way. It would be much more appealing if KDE could bring a complete solution to
its users, includung the actual services. Honestly, I do not know if this is
something what can be done, but the mind is free (at least where I live, I have
been told).

It's not about money
Running server costs real money. Services which include hardware, storage and
bandwidth can only be realised reliably if money flow is constant and big
enough. This implies that users which would want to use storage on servers run
by the KDE project would have to pay for it in the same way as they would if
they buy web space from another provider. But I think it would be of great
benetif for both sides. First, the user side:

• A complete solution would be offered to the user
  
• Software and service comes from one source -> perfect integration is
  possible
  
• The reputation of the open source community concerning privacy is the best I
  can imagine
  
• The control over the data produced by us (read as: the community) is under
  our own control
  
• As I said: It's not about money. But if there should be profit this profit
  is made by the community the user belongs to. This will shure pay back to the
  user.
  

Now the benefit for the community:

• We control the service API
  
• The control over the data produced by us (read as: the community) is under
  our own control
  
• We can provide a complete service
  
• We can somehow bind our users. This is not ment in a way of taking freedom
  away from them. It is more a branding of our users (in the sense of the branding
  of products).
  

Integrate it the right Way(tm)
Integration could be done in the same way as proposed for OpenID in my last post: into the
first run/welcome wizzard and into system settings.

I have to say that I am uncomfortable with the idea
of charging our users for services, but I have seen a "price"-field on a
GetTheHotNewStuff screenshot from KDE SC 4.4.)


[1]http://www.socialdesktop.org/kdeandthecloud.pdf

If KDE is being installed on each user's machine, then why bother having servers at all? Services can be run from each computer and advertised through the network, for example by setting some metadata in a Jabber profile. Other users who have that Jabber contact will have their KDE communicate to the other person's KDE via Jabber. In this way many services can be built, and whether KDE or anyone else wants to make their own pay-for server is up to them, it would behave just as any other installation. Plus users retain control, since it's running from their machine.

Making applications using a distributed, peer-to-peer approach is always more difficult than making them from a centralised approach, but think of how much better Bittorrent is than Napster. Plus it's a cool challenge

I think Jabber is not the solution. It uses XML and we can do better. We have DBus and SODEP, two fast protocols for remote procedure calls. DBus is used nearly everywhere (but not remotely) and SODEP is used to share Plasmoids.

DBus can be accessed remotely using Telepathy Tubes, which actually runs over Jabber

@Warbo
Congratulations
I spoke about binary protocols...