By qgil on

Someone mentioned in Orkut a "(not much publicized) foaf.module". I asked there for this module but got no answer. Searching "FOAF" in drupal.org gives no results, although there is a project started called Profile.module -> Leveraging profile info. for social networking capabilities.

It would be really nice to have something like a FOAF module for Drupal. Despite big whales like Orkut, or Friendsters, FOAF has possibly a great future in smaller, specialized communities that can exchange personal links and data inside and outside the communities, more or less like weblogs do with their articles. (but you already knew that) ;)

Comments

fx-1’s picture

fx-1 commented

Check the contributions/modules dir in CVS. There is a foaf module -- that I have not tried -- which purports to generate FOAF from profiles and buddy lists.

On another note, the peopleaggregator project which is centered on FOAF, is being done in PHP, so I suspect one might be able to port some of it. Check the wiki for more info.

dries’s picture

dries commented

See also: Note to innovators: translate technology to users. Make sure to check the screenshot.

benn-1’s picture

benn-1 commented

I would like to help develop a Drupal plug-in for accessing users foaf profile data via SharedID.com. SharedID is a free single-sign-on service that lets users authenticate themselves via a foaf file with web applications.

Are there any Drupal developers that would be interested in developing this plugin with me?

see http://www.sharedid.com/ for a sample php implementation.

drumm’s picture

drumm
he/him
Location NY, US
commented

Why not build FOAF into the existing Drupal distributed authentication? SharedID has some good ideas, but its centralized and needs some user interface tweaking before its usable to the average internet person (they don't know what foaf is). The centralization could cause some problems as the popularity grows, and I couldn't find a clear privacy policy for what they might do with data to track people around the internet and track certain websites. I believe decentralized is the only way to go. While Drupal distributed authenitication isn't perfect, it does its job.

From a purely implementation standpoint, SharedID would almost certainly require some core hacking, which won't make it in since things like iFrames are not accepted. Which will make SharedID a hack at best.

marccanter’s picture

marccanter commented

Yes! I totally support a bottom's up FOAFication of Drupal. It's entirely possible to not only use FOAF with your existing authentication system, profiles, modules structure - but also to benefit from import/export from other FOAF systems.

That's stage 1.

Eventually a more fully featured social network could easily be layered in (say the PeopleAggregator) which would use FOAF to represent all participants and groups in the network. All Drupal.org members would imediately become PeopleAggregator memebrs via FOAF import and otehr more advanced forms of 'hot-linking'.

If we design these inter-connecting networks together properly, we'll have a People's DNS. That's what Joel De Gan is working on. He worked at Zend.

If we're to eat our own dogfood (as Jonas Luster seems to insist is a requirement for all of life) then let's take it even one step further.

So Drupal accounts have FOAF, the system understands 'friends' (or 'hack-a-federates' or CatHerders for all I care) and special features are developed for supporting networks of Drupal programmers and contributers.

So how about using XML-RPC to connect in external modules and treat them like web services?

We've been developing the intial prototype DLA (digital lifestyle aggregator) with Phil Pearson and his 'Topicxchange' (http://topicexchange.com). We store tables of RSS feeds, blogrolls, FOAFs, MP3s, Images (.gif & .jpg), topics and blog posts...... down in New Zealand (where Phil is) and we peek and poke at it via XML-RPC into some Laszlo objects - which then appear on the PeopleAggregator pages (well use to appear, until they disappeared - but that's a diofferent story - hopefully they'll reappear again - soon.

So to make a long story short - Drupal is a system that has it's own internal 'pluggable architecture' - but could also use FOAF and XML-RPC to plug in other external stuff. I assume some activities like this are happening here already.

But it's even possible in the world of Digital Identity to support multiple scenarios, multiple ID systems - so YES - your SharedID idea, XFN, TypeKey - all are relevant and possible.

Think of it as Identity aggregating.

clockwerx@www.spreadfirefox.com’s picture

clockwerx@www.spreadfirefox.com commented

Heard of it?
FOAF Based distributed authentication and profile transport.

http://www.socialtext.net/foafnet/index.cgi?FOAFnet$

This would be a great starting point for minimum FOAF i/o stuff.

Haven't looked at the CVS, just discovered the distributed login stuff and am deeply impressed.

*edit* oops, looking at the foafnet stuff they already talk about drupal... :/ ooopss

marccanter’s picture

marccanter commented

Dudes and Dudesses,

After careful consideration - the PeopleAggregator project has decided to use nothing other than Drupal for a lots of our stuff - basically building out multiple KINDS of accounts and a full-fledged 'digital lifestyle aggregator'.

Needless to say this brings a full FOAF based social network into teh Drupal world - all open source and available - and compatible with Drupal.

:-)

More later.....

:-)

Let me know if anybody wants to help!

- Marc [ at ] broadbandmechanics.com

- blog = http://blogs.it/0100198

- company = http://broadbandmechanics.com

RobRoy’s picture

RobRoy commented

Is PeopleAggregator temporarily offline or is that permanent? The website is giving an offline msg.

adrian’s picture

adrian commented

I am guessing it's probably permanent.

Check out his new site http://ourmedia.org

--
The future is so Bryght, I have to wear shades.

visionleads’s picture

visionleads commented

I have wanted for years to create a "network of social 'interest' networks".

Much of this time has been focused on climbing towards my launch of next contact (IVR/TTS/CRMish stuff.. lol). Therefore all my funds have been unavailable for the social "interest" networking project.

I knew that i would meet more individuals like Marc who have also been dreaming about this, as well ;) and more importantly have been able to devote a serious effort towards this movement.

I would like to start as a testor of your project, and then hopefully provide an additional developer to PeopleAggregator ;-) ASAP!

Can you please let us know how to subscribe to your possible incremental release updates + your real time progress :-) ?

I couldn't find it on your site or blogs.

THANKS Marc! In advance for what will hopefully be the beginning of 1000s of new partnerships!

Why can you “Expect Success!”?
Because Your SUCCESS is my PASSION!,

Shahrooz Bhopti
Chairman & CEO - Next Wave Network LLC
Coming Soon: http://www.DrivenCompassion.com

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