Re: Drupal Puzzle Pieces

[Jonas M L. <jl...@jl...>]

> Hopefully we=92re all in sync and know what we=92re gonna do =96 =
right?

I guess what we're missing is a set of tangible milestones and short=20
term design goals. Let me try to outline some of the things I see...

We have a core:

[ core ]

this core holds basic user information, as well as a set of pointers to=20=

instances:

[ core ]
|   \   \   \   \
[ instances ]

each instance represents a "persona" of the account in question. The=20
account can hold an infinite amount of personae, each of which is=20
linked to either an internal or an external service, which in turn=20
holds data, such as weblog postings, news, images, your bank statement,=20=

or the list of girlfriends to call next week.

What is needed here:

a) A core
b) Instantiations
and
c) communication protocols between external and internal sources

there are a number of ways, how this could be glued together - FOAF,=20
some proprietary system, or something else. I assume you want FOAF.

so here:

                   [ core ]
                  / <----- FOAF glue
[ instance ]
                 \   <----- infoexchange protocol
      [ external or internal source ]

Taking this to tangible milestones:

a) we need a core. The core must be able to transparently address any=20
number of instances, all of which should be agnostic towards the data=20
they receive and send. In Drupal talk, we need to expand user.module=20
and profile.module to include those changes.

b) we need means to communicate and extract info from FOAF data. Again,=20=

this might be handled by Drupal, and requires something like the=20
drupal.module.

c) We need APIs between the external and internal services. This can be=20=

done by creating a new node-type and attaching the service to it.=20
node-types then are tied to personae and all personae are tied to one=20
account.

Milestone 1: Make Drupal multi-personae capable
Milestone 2: Ensure Drupal's ability to authenticate against and=20
retrieve data from FOAF
Milestone 3: Create node-types and tie them to personae
Milestone 4: Create "commons" module for registered users
Milestone 5: Collect underpants
Milestone 6: ...
Milestone 7: Profit

jonas