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# Federated vs Distributed
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After I have been at the [30c3](https://events.ccc.de/congress/2013) (30th Chaos Communication Congress), I noticed a lot of people were working on
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purely distributed protocols, and some were even openly against any client-server or federated architecture.
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After I have been at the [30c3](https://events.ccc.de/congress/2013) (30th Chaos Communication Congress), I noticed many people were working purely on distributed protocols, and some were even openly against any client-server or federated architecture.
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I believe each application should be designed with a specific architecture, Which is Why I
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I believe each application should be designed with a specific architecture, which is why I
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made Fenrir with federation in mind, but in a way that lets you build any system on top of it.
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**This analysis is incomplete, contact me to modify it if you have comments**
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# The Distributed architecture
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... | ... | @@ -14,7 +12,7 @@ The arguments for a distributed architecture can be: |
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* I don't want to manage one or more a server(s) (pay, administer and maintain)
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* I don't want anyone else to own the data I put on the system
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* I don't want anyone to have control on what I do, or what data I have on the system
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* distributed means no points of failure
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* distributed means no single points of failure
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The arguments against are:
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* distributed means highly increased initial complexity
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... | ... | @@ -44,7 +42,7 @@ Federation means: |
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* The federated server operator has control over its users
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* The architecture is hierarchal
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* only really used services and domains need to scale up, not the whole network.
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* the end user uses only the bandwidth/disck space, cpu for its requirements.
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* the end user uses only the bandwidth/disk space, cpu for its requirements.
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* protocol-level interoperability between different organizations.
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Contrary to popular belief, federation does **NOT** mean:
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... | ... | @@ -60,8 +58,6 @@ The only downside of the Fenrir federation is that your main server can imperson |
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This means that if you already logged in somewhere, your authentication server can _not_ impersonate you there.
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I'm still trying to find a solution to this, but for now it is inevitable.
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# The Fenrir Way
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I have chosen a very flexible design. It is federated based, but **this does not mean federation is enforced**.
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