location-oriented services

[john]

Thanks I will join this project and try and help out with testing etc.
There are suitable differences to make things interesting. I am
personally interested in the amounts of network traffic that are
generated with these approaches.

Looking forward to the code,

John.

On 07/04/2008, Chia-I Wu <olv at openmoko.com> wrote:
> Hi John,
>
>  There is an on-going work on projects.openmoko.org to provide similar
>  service:
>
>  http://diversity.projects.openmoko.org/
>
>  The server is a jabber server.  We use GEOLOC extension for location
>  exchange.
>
>  Locally, there is a daemon running.  It works as a jabber client (and
>  more).  The UIs communicate with the daemon through dbus.
>
>
>  On Sat, Apr 05, 2008 at 12:31:29PM +0100, john wrote:
>  > Hi. I have been working on a D-Bus location-oriented service. I would
>  > like to get some feedback to help direct the development and possibly
>  > get some others involved. There are also some important non-technical
>  > issues I would like to address.
>  >
>  > Firstly, the D-Bus service is a server type process to look-up the
>  > distance of other users of the system. It has a simple interface which
>  > has been designed to be self-clocking. What this means is you need to
>  > "ping" in location to update your local database of distance
>  > information. One of the ideas behind this was to encourage updates
>  > rather than be dominated by look-ups. A key feature of updating the
>  > database in this system is that transferring the data required is done
>  > in a very efficient manor. It actually "bit packs" the data. This
>  > makes no assumptions about the quality or cost of the underlying
>  > network.
>  >
>  > So how would this be used? Well, I need some help with ideas and
>  > clients. A simple use case would be to match users to your contacts
>  > list and alert when they are within a certain distance. There are
>  > other D-Bus location-oriented projects which could be integrated or
>  > used in some way.
>  >
>  > Are there any students working on GSOC projects in this area?
>  >
>  > It is my intention to release all code including server. This brings
>  > me to the non-technical issues. Although I don't have any problems
>  > running server processes on my own hardware etc I think there are some
>  > issues which need to be addressed. I understand the privacy concerns
>  > of using these types of services and want to make this as open as
>  > possible. Releasing the server code is fine but it does not actually
>  > mean the "real" server is some other code doing something evil and
>  > logging your data etc. This is where a trusted third party needs to be
>  > involved. If these server processes were run from such a source it
>  > would be a step in the right direction. How do others feel about this?
>  > I know some people will never use these types of services full stop.
>  > That is fine. I know others are interested in using them. I personally
>  > am not interested in plotting on a map where I am. I don't mind
>  > knowing that I am approximately close to something or someone and
>  > vice-versa.
>  >
>  > Anyway, I think D-Bus provides us with a good opportunity to develop
>  > some cool applications in this mobile space. Interested in your
>  > thoughts?
>  >
>  > John (zedstar on IRC).
>  >
>
>
> --
>  Regards,
>  olv
>