Wow - we just got Slashdotted! (And our servers seem to have withstood a sustained load over six times what their previous peak had been - whew!) Anyway, it seems clear that our messaging around how we work has got some holes in it…
First, it appears many people think that this is a centralized system. Actually, i-brokers, which are based on the open OASIS XRI, XDI and SAML standards, are not centralized. Well, they are now only because there is just one of them, but we have a project underway to package our code for release - under the dual GPL/BSD license - by the end of the year. At that point in time anyone can be an i-broker. As our business model is based on us being trustable (as people can easily move to any other i-broker if ours loses favor) it’ll simply have to be so - and provide an excellent set of services that cause people to stay with us.
Also, the fact that there is only one global i-broker may lead to some misunderstandings. While it is true that there are only two (primary) global namespaces - rooted in the ‘=’ (personal) and ‘@’ (organizational) global context symbols - there are two other types of namespaces that open the system wide open. Community i-names, usually rooted with an organizational ‘@-name’, allow each community to create its own local namespace. For example, I’m “broadcatch” in the Slashdot namespace. Every community can create as many local namespaces as it wants to - for free!
The other primary global namespace, which opens things even wider, is the concept of rooting a namespace on an XRI cross reference. This will allow roots based on cryptographic public keys, among other things, and will be ideal in peer-to-peer systems as a vehicle for creating truly decentralized i-names.
Finally, besides the fact that i-name users have i-name portability that enables easy movement between i-brokers, the data that the i-broker manages for them can reside anywhere - including on their personal systems. There is no requirement that the data be stored at the i-broker - in fact, a basic i-broker has no mechanism for such data storage!
More later…