The SDS Team has posted a great round of Q&A here. Also, I will be talking to Pablo and David at Mix this week – hassling them about my Many-to-Many obsession…
Looking forward to hear the big announcements they have in store 😉
The Live Framework team has just announced that the April CTP is available now. There is a long list of new and improved things, but the one I am really happy to see is Windows 7 support – looks like I will be running 7 on all my machines really soon as tht was the one thing that was holding me back 😉 – here is the post – Live Framework Team Blog : Live Framework Updated!
Thanks to everyone on the Live Framework team!
Now back to my little ADO.NET Data Services project… trying to get some simple syntax worked out for creating Many to Many links via the REST interface… I think I am missing something obvious.
No time to write right now – but on top of the great experiences I have been having with ADO.NET Data Service (nee Astoria) running on premises, I am now getting ready to take my work to a new heights – the clouds – Azure SQL Data Services – read all about it here. SQL Data Services Team Blog : The no spin details on the new SDS features
I will be back to tell tales of Flash and ADO.NET Data Services … What No HTTP PUT or DELETE… ah, no problems… and you want a little info on that service… How about a taste of $metadata… but that is all for another day – probably Friday.
–Update Thursday 3/12/2009 — This service is not yet available and as of today there is no public date set. But next week is Mix… so maybe we will get some new info then.
With all this Facebook stuff, it is time to have a look at a Bill of Rights for the Social Web that was devised by folks who I trust a little bit more than Zuckerberg/Facebook.
A Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web « Open Social Web
Interestingly enough – Joseph Smarr is one of the authors. While I raised issues with his premise at the OpenID UX confab – which Facebook hosted – I think Smarr and the other authors have a clear articulation of what people should demand. So give it a read, and fight for your rights. If Facebook won’t provide them, then it is time to start looking for someone else who will.
And, if you think it would be too difficult to migrate from Facebook to another platform – then you are starting to see the Lock-In issue that folks like Marc Canter have been talking about all this time. Open is the new black.
The Live team has just made a giant set of Jumpstart videos available. They cover a large range of topics including: Identity; Messneger; Silverlight Streaming; Virtual Earth; Could APIs; Live Mesh; and the future direction of Live Services. Now I need a place to hide with a solid internet connection.
Marc Canter just blogged about a comment on his blog by Stephen Downes. This is timely, though honestly, I wanted to focus writing on the Trust meme a little more before diving into this topic. What Stephen and Marc are getting at is the tip of the iceberg. It also goes right to the heart of an assertion that I have heard many times before (I believe this is a point that Steve Gillmor has made on the Gillmor Gang podcast – but i can’t find the appropriate quote). The assertion is that a URI is the PERMANENT location of the content. That you can use all these cloud tools as long as you can get to your content via a URI.
Well, the notion of permanence is or URIs is plainly wrong. Also, the notion that your content should be in one place only and then spread around all over the place via hyperlinks is as old as the term – Ted Nelson – HyperText – Transclusion. I mean, get a copy of Literary Machines and get back to me.
To power this ability for you to own your content and store it anywhere you damn please – and move it around – and not break and applications or documents that rely on it, you need a service like DNS for content. You need to be able to reassign the rights to your content – sell it, give it away, relinquish control in some way. This already exists as well. Has for a long long time. Courtesy of CNRI – ask Bob Kahn – it’s called the Handle System and it is application the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) System.
This is what it does:
This is why they did it:
So please, let’s not reinvent the wheel – there is so much good thought in this system – it is in place – take the time to grok it – then use it.
Dare Obasanjo will be moderating a great panel on Opening Up Social Networks featuring
Kevin Marks – Software Engineer at Google; formerly principal engineer for Technorati; one of the founders of Microformats
Marc Canter – CEO at Broadband Mechanics; founder of Macromedia
Monica Keller – Dev Manager at MySpace; formerly Architect at SumTotal
Joseph Smarr – Chief Platform Architect at Plaxo (possibly replaced by John McCrea)
This is one I will not miss.
I read Joseph Smarr’s What an "RP" Wants presentation after reading Marc Canter’s account of the Facebook hosted OpenID UX get together that happened yesterday. While I greatly appreciate the work that Joesph Smarr and all the others are putting in on this issue, my main issue – an issue of Trust – continues to be ignored. That is…
I am being forced to trust the people who are sitting at the table, and frankly I want options.
I want a large ecosystem of OPs (Open ID providers) competing to provide me with the greatest level of service and earn my trust. Earn it.
Then I want the BigCos, as Marc likes to call them, to become RPs (relying partners) with the OPs that earn their trust.
Being an OP is a serious business – to be a good one you have to service both sides of the market – that means seamless UX from the user perspective, impeccable operations and data protection, and sophisticated, federated authentication with the RP, whatever platform they may be on.
Marc reminded me, that being an RP is a serious business too. It is, because it requires TRUST. I am not saying that Google or Microsoft should federate with any random OpenID Provider. I understand, and fully expect, that they will carefully vet the OP’s they Rely on. Microsoft has already dipped their toe in the water with HealthVault, as Angus Logan had pointed out to me a while back
So, I will get excited when Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, MySpace and the rest become RPs that rely on OPs that are not part of their club. BigCo’s that exclusively serve as OPs seem to be simply making a play to “own” people’s identity credentials.
Marc blogging about Facebook hosting an OpenID summit. Marc begins to point to the crux of this whole thing. If the BigCos are serious – they are going to have to act as RPs – even in some limited way – otherwise there is no freedom. On that topic, as I have mentioned before, Microsoft via its HealthVault initiative has actually federated Live ID with 3 other OpenID providers – that is the kind of thing we need. I need to the BigCos to respect the people I trust to vouch for my identity. Well, we need to find a mutually trusted third party and it isn’t any of the people who were at the UX confab.
Some quick points from Angus. He is dead on about what is non-negotiable. I think the list can be longer.
Waiting to hear more about the event from the usual suspects.
Why I have to log into facebook to get to this link about the event is completely beyond me.
Here is Angus’ initial post.
Angus Logan’s Blog : the tax is conversion but providing choice is not negotiable