Michiel de Jong wrote:
> if we stop thinking about the in-app widget for a moment, then we have
> much more options.
>
> On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 11:30 AM, Jan-Christoph Borchardt
> <
h...@jancborchardt.net> wrote:
>> On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 9:13 AM, Michiel de Jong <
mic...@unhosted.org> wrote:
>>> On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 12:58 AM, Jan-Christoph Borchardt
>>> <
h...@jancborchardt.net> wrote:
>>>> Just offer a choice of providers.
>>> only make the ones that we like work, and exclude the others? That's
>>> not an option. Anybody should have the right to become a storage
>>> provider without permission of some centralized decision makers.
>> Then we�ll add them.
>
> who is 'we'? (serious question)
>
> the problem with using icons is that it centralizes power on the big providers.
>
> storage-first is much better in that respect. teach people to first go
> to their storage provider (they already know how to go to a website,
> no need for us to re-engineer that!). So teach users "first, go to
> OwnCube". they'll say "ok, i know how to do that (and probably type
> '
owncube.com' into google ;). once they're on there, it's easy to make
> them log in or sign up first, and then go to the app. This also ties
> in with there the apps-launch home screen is related to the
> OAuth-revoke screen.
>
> the only situation where this doesn't work very well is if people
> encounter an app and want to start using it. but there's pros and cons
> to all options. in that case, we could still make the widget appear.
>
> for the spec this might mean we would require a grant endpoint and a
> revoke endpoint instead of requiring a whole dialog and interface.
>
> actually the whole remoteStorage.js library could be an in-browser app
> that talks to the remoteStorage server via webintents + http POST, and
> to the app via webintents + postMessage. i'll try to put together a
> prototype of that and then we can decide if that's a viable future
> direction.
So roughly (from my personal standpoint):
1) The user should have the ability to specify a remoteStorage endpoint
2) The remoteStorage endpoint should have the ability to specify it's
comminication protocol (like simple-webdav) and it's auth* mechanisim
3) Automatic endpoint discover (via linked data, web finger, whatever)
could/should be bolted on after, if required.
Use-cases / Requirements:
I can quickly make a 'site' which has web-dav enabled, then auth by
basic-auth, digest-auth, webid (ssl client cert) and hook in to ldap at
the back end if I want to.
As a user of my own would-be applications I want to specify my own
storage endpoint quickly and painlessly without using additional
technologies I don't want or shouldn't need to.
As a would-be developer of multi-user applications I'd like the ability
to automatically assign storage to users, to let them specify their own,
or in some cases to select from a pre specified list (perhaps ones which
have been deemed to be secure, or support only certain protocols, like
only https).
I may wish to use oauth with a multi-user storage provider I create to
delegate auth over to twitter/google etc, and have their dialogues
popped up from an unhosted application - but this is on an application
by application basis, and I'd need it to be completely decoupled from
the storage functionality, such that I can swap out how auth is handled
and how remote storage endpoints are specified at any point, in any app,
without changing the application layer code.
I'd also like the ability to use non authenticated anonymous storage.
In all cases, I do not want the user, or myself, to be _required_ to
have a special login / profile provider which specifies their
remoteStorage endpoint(s), or even to have this notion of "logged in".
As an aside, personally I know that I'll mainly use AmazonS3, simple
webdav storage, and possibly git/svn although I'd much prefer whatever
techs were behind the http(s) interface to be of no concern.
Hope that feedback helps the discussion a little,
Best,
Nathan