[Catalyst] Google Summer of Code

[Kieren Diment]

So, it's that time again.

I had a thought about this.  I quite like some things about  
facebook.   It's a useful way for me to be able to communicate with  
people I've known since before I left school. But there are two  
things that really irritate me about it, these are:

* Closed single platform with one vendor in control of my data
* They make me visit their website, and have pretty piss poor support  
for rss.

Sooo, I thought that it would be interesting to produce a Simple  
Social Network Comminication Protocol.  Essentially gluing existing  
stuff together like OpenID, FOAF, Various levels of access control,  
REST and the like to produce a distributed social networking system.   
That is a web or web-service server to provide a social network for a  
group, but that can also communicate with other SSNCP servers to  
provide a distributed social network system.

So, I reckon this would be a two year process.  Year one would be  
writing the spec and getting the bits and pieces gathered together  
and functioning properly on the workshop floor.  Year two would  
involve lots of welding, duct tape and hot glue to get the package  
together.  In year one, the benifit for catalyst is that lots of our  
bits and pieces get a nice oil and polish.  In year two we get a  
product with a lot of potential to be influential on the applications  
scene (rather than the architecture scene).

Any students out there who are up for applying for this?