Add-Ons / Extensions / Plug-ins...

Anybody can fork diaspora and add features on their own pod. If properly maintained other pods can merge those additions into their fork and so on. If properly developed and meaningful for the majority of our userbase we can pull that code into the main codebase. This is already happening.

I don't think we're at a state where we need to restrict to a maintainable feature set and thus throw out otherwise popular features, so I see no need for a formal plugin system. Especially once we got a proper Web-API.

Honestly, it may just be better to develop web apps that make use of a Diaspora API.

The only feature I see to make a usefull usage of a plugin system is commercial Facebook-like applications, to which I'm definitly opposed.

However, it might actually be usefull to extensively document the API and the core code's file to make the code easier to understand for the newcommers like me.

thanks for sharing well I don't have a clue on programming that's why I was just truing to share the idea.. so not sure on what implications would have been able to have extensions and if it was technicallly feasible .. but what I mainly would like seeing is having lots of controls over settings. for example I have posted another post related to "features" like for example
having the chance to set scheduled times to participate in a group or community .. or for example been able to join groups of interests .. etc..
in few words having far more power and features than the ones that fb offers .. hope it makes sense..
I thought allowing people to develop extensions would lead to that but my technical ignorance on the subject does not allow me to expose the things correctly ..

Thanks and cheers,

I do like the idea of plug-ins, because it seems like it would be easier for developers to add features, and podmins could decide which plug-ins they wanted to install based upon their whims and/or the demands of their users. This is how Friendica works.

I'll admit, however, that I am unfamiliar with how D*'s codebase works, so I'll defer to those who have more experience in these things.

Brent and I have the same idea: forking D* allows developers to add features in a "hardcoded" way. Creating a plug-in system, podmins can freely add and share their own feature, without adding a line of code manually

The only two problem - I suppose - is to think what should happen when you remove a plugin and how to create a decentralized plugin system.

I think, we should clarify this point to make sure we talk about the same thing.

To me, plugins are not the same than extensions. I feel like plugins are much like facebook's applications : something provided by third parties that the user can install or not. Thing I'm completely against.

Extensions are more like Wikipedia extensions : installed by the admin of the pod to add functionnalities. It seems to be pretty what gems are doing in rails. However, it might be a good idea to let some gems be facultative and let the admin choose which one install or not. But this is much more a deployment problem than a code core's.

Anyway, in that last sense, I totally agree !

@augier Yes, I was thinking of extensions installed by the podmin, not the user. I don't know why you're against third-party apps, though.

Because I fear third-parties come with uncontrollable rights restrictions and non-free contents.

@augier I am not an expert on these things but I guess people could have the option to accept or not (install or not) acquire or not. use or not.. or look for free alternatives third party apps.. or extensions or whatever is called .. is a matter of having optiosn in order to have access to more and more ways to control the way you manage the communities or share the information or set interactions via social networks..
hope it makes sense..
regards to all and thanks for participating on discussions on proposals or ideas.. its exciting and promising !
:)