[thelist] Idea: Distributed CMS.

[James Baster]

----- Original Message -----
From: <David.Cantrell at Gunter.AF.mil>
To: <thelist at lists.evolt.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 2:41 PM
Subject: RE: [thelist] Idea: Distributed CMS.


> > Firstly, it is  important to note this I do not see a central
> > database with mini websites. In this system each site is its
> > own master - a peer to peer network in effect. This enables
> > each individual site to keep control in there hands. For
> > instance, if a roleplaying club joins a national group of
> > roleplayers and later on disagrees with them on some
> > fundamental idea, they can if they choose simply leave the
> > group and still own all there own content, domain name and website.
>
> James,
>
> Having just read your requirements, and having not used this product at
all
> (but wanting to in the near future), it sounds like your requirement could
> at least partially be met by using the MoveableType[0] weblog at each
> installation, having multiple contributers per weblog, and then using
> MoveableType's TrackBack[1] capability.

Intresting post: I had seen www.lazyweb.com and TrackBack before but never
understood how they worked - Thanks. (And  http://www.ecademy.com/alexa.php
looks intresting, might have a crack at that if I get free time. I've never
programmed anything where performance and scalability would matter so much,
would be intresting to try. :-)

As for no central server, my primary reason is to give websites control, not
scalability. (Althought that is a good reason to.) Althought in a kind of
way what you describe does match what I had planned.

Lots of individual sites, passing links (in trackbacks case) or content (in
my case) around directly to each other. However the central server acts as
basically a message relay (if I'm reading this right.), taking in messages
from one site and forwarding them to all other sites in the group. (or the
other sites check on the central server for new messages, or rss feeds.)

See, I had planned a strictly pull model, where sites could pull content off
other sites. But if one website published content it thinks others would
want, there would be a messaging system, or a ping (nice terminology), to
let the other websites know.

Thats not really true p2p, or true central server. After all, Lazyweb does
just holds a database of links to ... distributed content!

Inicidetlly, I have to admit one of my primary motivations for posting this
idea was to get feedback on it, but also to get it out in the public. Im a
final year univeristy student and have no time to start a major project now.
If someone is looking for a project, heres one for you :-) Otherwise I'll
take a crack at it first chance I get. Like I said before, I do have
technical thoughts on this I would be happy to share with someone.

James.