[wsfii-discuss] Confusion on Hive and Spontaneous Networking.

Thu Jul 13 13:08:43 UTC 2006

On 13 Jul 06, at 14:20, Ramon Roca wrote:

> 
> mmm, interesting, I like the concept of "Hivewares" as sensors in 
> Pervasive Computing where are able to easily do certain things, but 
> thinking on this... but well, even an "acme" webcam can broadcast video 
> over ip and does it out-of-the-box. The only difference I can see with a 
> specialized firmware is that could be open-source or more flexible? 
> Can't the acme webcam become part of a hive?

if you can re-programme it to do other things and if it has two 
network interfaces, yes.
but let me say something else, the guys who are doing hive networks 
are my friends and I admire their skills and commitment. however, I 
find the name unfortunate. biological metaphors are so mid-nineties. 
then these concepts came out of MIT and such places and there was 
and is a certain ideology connected to it, like: hive networks, where 
science of complexity meets neo-liberalism. only read Out of Control 
by Kevin Kelly to see what I mean. I hope the free community can 
come up with better slogans, better names and not somehow 
replicate what the think tanks of swarm capitalism have already 
proposed
best
Armin

> 
> Anyway, to build the hive, besides of the specialized capability hidding 
> complexity, which is always good, the "hivegadgets" have to publish 
> their capabilities over the network because if not, they are really not 
> available to the network participants or either to other "hivegadgets" 
> if is M2M. In today's world that doesn't occurs so I think that this 
> answer can only come complemented by the appropiate XML interfaces and 
> the Spontaneous Data Hubs and Services... without this I can't imagine a 
> single magic firmware totally autonomous doing all the things unless we 
> reduce the concept of the hive to a single firmware-centric implementation.
> 
> I assume that a "hiveware" can also be a mapping server which assembles 
> the hive OpenGIS GML information (http://www.opengis.net/gml/) with a 
> backround map provided by an external public WFS Server ( 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Feature_Service ) to display the hive 
> over a geography... and that has few relationship with a given firmware...
> 
> I'll keep on this way. IMHO rather than being contradictory, I'm  just 
> filling gaps.
> 
> Thx for keeping me updated. Just let me know if you think that could be 
> better to stop me of using this terminology.
> 
> 
> En/na Armin Medosch ha escrit:
> > Hi Ramon,
> >
> > I like the questions which you are addressing, they are important 
> > ones. My thoughts went into a similar direction when I wrote this text 
> > about hive networks about 9 months ago. 
> >
> > http://theoriebild.ung.at/view/Main/HiveNetworks
> >
> > The more critical parts come at the end. there are no 'solutions' or 
> > easy fixes but maybe there are interesting questions and boring 
> > questions to ask. 
> >
> > I took quite some care to make the text accessible to geeks and non-
> > geeks alike. however, technology has once more overtaken the slow 
> > process of reflection. hive networkers have meanwhile began the 
> > switch from Oleg's firmware to OpenWRT which should make it 
> > easier for more developers to join in. A new hive wiki with better 
> > documentation is under development but as far as I know has not yet 
> > been opend for public participation. I will keep you posted
> >
> > best
> > Armin
> >
> >
> >
> > On 13 Jul 06, at 10:39, Ramon Roca wrote:
> >
> >   
> >> As I said the other day, I dumped many things which were on my brain, 
> >> taking lessons on our experiences and visions about the Spontaneous 
> >> Networking.
> >> Now is time to think twice on that, discussion, better elaborate some 
> >> concepts. The goal is to make it clear, if not, you know, just more 
> >> smoke on the field.
> >>
> >> Please I will appreciate comments on the following. By googling saw 
> >> "hive networks" I've got the impression that some of the people related 
> >> to wsfii (Julian, etc...) have been using this vocabulary earlier. I 
> >> just want to be consistent and not provide more confusion if there are 
> >> already some adopted definitions.
> >>
> >> The real goal must be helping en everyone's projects roadmap, certainly 
> >> at least does in what we're doing at guifi, so help us to evolve the 
> >> concepts we've working on in the last months.
> >>
> >> I'm sorry, but I saw the expression "hive networking" just two days ago. 
> >> Since that I was thinking on that expression because might help a lot in 
> >> defining some of the concepts we need to describe for vertebrating 
> >> networks. A "hive" could mean something which provides robustness to the 
> >> local communities, solving density and critical mass problems, I mean, 
> >> Spontaneous Networking is not only about scalability, more than this is 
> >> about the ability to supply resources to the new "hives" in order to 
> >> give them more chances for survival when they are in their critical 
> >> path, and as long as they mature and get established, create new paths 
> >> for creating new ones to boost enhance the others. That is a concept, 
> >> and said in this way, very complementary to the spontaneous networking.
> >>
> >> But by googling "hive networks" I just have discovered that in this case 
> >> is not a new concept and some of you have already worked on this. There 
> >> is also a wiki site hivenetworks.net! But by my first (diagonal) look 
> >> into this, I'm not sure that the term is being used in the same way as 
> >> understanding it. I.e. at hivenetworks.net I've got the impression that 
> >> after talking about a very abstract concept ("hive blobs"), goes 
> >> straight to talk about a very "gadget" oriented things (firmwares, 
> >> packages, etc....). Gadgets for sure are needed, are basic! However I 
> >> don't see what's really new on this, there is just a need to keep going 
> >> on with them and getting better, we might have dozens now and we might 
> >> have hundreds in the future, some could get unsused, new ones might 
> >> appear...
> >>
> >> So I miss something there. The hive/spontaneous approach have to be 
> >> something else than just describing resources, is also about enabling 
> >> the capabilities to them for spontaneously working together, that is 
> >> building the hive. For sure anything pluggable into an IP network is 
> >> already by definition able to extend something, but by having just that, 
> >> isn't that only about just networking in general? what about solving the 
> >> critical mass problems and building the hives?
> >>
> >> Comments welcome :)
> >>
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