SwellRT:

Facilitating decentralized real-time collaboration

Samer Hassan @samerP2P #Decentralization

Berkman Klein Center at Harvard

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Consuming responsibly

Using responsibly

Legal Context

City

State

Federation

Technology is Political

Technical Context

App

Platform

Infrastructure

Web 2.0: Platforms

Web 2.0: Platforms

Web 2.0: Platforms

Web 2.0: Platforms

How bad is it?

Centralization

For-profit

Surveillance

Monopoly

Centralised Control

Top-down

US-centric

Proprietary Software

Single Ownership

This was different...

Decentralization

Bottom-up

Diversity

Privacy

Anonymity

Decentralised Control

Emerging Alternatives

Multiple Use Cases

- File Sharing

- Microblogging

- Permanent Storage

- Shared ledger

- Social Networking

- Collaboration

Multiple Use Cases

- File Sharing

- Microblogging

- Permanent Storage

- Shared ledger

- Social Networking

- Collaboration

Multiple Use Cases

- File Sharing

- Microblogging

- Permanent Storage

- Shared ledger

- Social Networking

- Collaboration

Multiple Use Cases

- File Sharing

- Microblogging

- Permanent Storage

- Shared ledger

- Social Networking

- Collaboration

Multiple Use Cases

- File Sharing

- Microblogging

- Permanent Storage

- Shared ledger

- Social Networking

- Collaboration

Multiple Use Cases

- File Sharing

- Microblogging

- Permanent Storage

- Shared ledger

- Social Networking

- Collaboration

Multiple Use Cases

- File Sharing

- Microblogging

- Permanent Storage

- Shared ledger

- Social Networking

- Collaboration…?

How do we collaborate?

Collaboration App Types

ProjectManagement

Communication Text / File based Collaboration

Blend RTCollaboration

We may want to build...

We may want to build...

We may want to build...

Building Decentralized Software is Hard

Development Frameworks assume centralization

What is SwellRT?

Development Framework for Decentralized Real-Time Collaborative Apps

Collaboration Technologies

Centralized Decentralized

Monolithic

Low Level API / LibraryTogetherJS

WebRTC, YJS

More value for developers

ShareJSDerbyJS

Similar Technologies

Framework API Framework Framework Framework

Open Source

Decentralized

Rich Text

History

E-mail

Federated

Open Standard

Free/Open Source

Universal?

SwellRT History

✓ Real-time collaboration

✓ Federated

✘ Free/Libre Open Source

✘ API

✓ Real-time collaboration

✓ Federated

✓ Free/Libre Open Source

✘ API

✓ Real-time collaboration

✘ Federated

✘ Free/Libre Open Source

✓ API

✓ Real-time collaboration

✓ Federated

✓ Free/Libre Open Source

✓ API

SwellRT History

✓ Real-time collaboration

✓ Federated

✓ Free/Libre Open Source

✓ API

SwellRT History

Giving back: Apache Wave adopting SwellRT codebase

Federated Database for Collaborative Objects

Participantshave a global ID

on Internet

samer@swellrt.org

Collaborative Objects

Have a global ID in Internet

myserver.net/s+zpk87MzATiA

Collaborative Objects

=JSON Documents

with steroids

“Patient #135A”

$2,000

Privacy + Collaborative Objects

Object

Access ControlRules

Privacy + Collaborative Objects

Access ControlRules

Object

Benefits for Developers

Hiding complexity, avoiding extra code for:

- Data storage

- Data sharing, communications, sync...

- User identity management

- Federation

- New UX patterns like Reactive UI

Database / Framework

SwellRT API

App (Frontend)

SwellRT(Backend)

● Storage● Sync● Identity● Federation● Reactive UI

Database / Framework

SwellRT API

App (Frontend)

SwellRT(Backend)

● Storage● Sync● Identity● Federation● Reactive UI

Federated

Server Server

Server Server

Federated

Server Server

Server Server

Changes

Real-time changepropagation

Collaborative Object

Changes Sync

Changes

Real-time changepropagation

Collaborative Object

Changes Sync

Database Framework

•Email integration•Mobile Notifications •Identity provider•Multi Platform Reactive API •Pre-built Components•Backend Management Tools

•Persistence•Search engine•Real-time access control (concurrency control)

➔ Rich Text Editor + Widgets

➔ Provided as Image

➔ Clients for

More Features

An Example

A visual way to get people involved

Explore other projects

An example: Teem

Web App: http://teem.works

Android App: http://tiny.cc/teemapp

Samer HassanBerkman Center at Harvard

Universidad Complutense de Madridhttp://samer.hassan.name

@samerP2P

This presentation is a composition of text and images by Samer Hassan. The text is released as Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. The images are mostly copyrighted and used under Fair Use. The image logos belong to their corresponding brands, projects or institutions. Sources of other images: CSA Tabacalera, Calvin & Hobbes, Big Bang Theory, Brainless Tales, Baran (1964), P2Pvalue, GRASIA UCM, Wikipedia, Microsoft, Journal of Peer Production, Teemu Arina’s slideshare, and unknown others

Questions?

Some links

http://swellrt.org

https://github.com/P2Pvalue/swellrt

@P2Pvalue @Pablojan

Thank you

Samer Hassan @samerP2P

This presentation is a composition of text and images. The text is released as Creative Commons

Attribution 4.0 International. The images are mostly copyrighted and used under Fair Use. The image

logos belong to their corresponding brands/ projects/ institutions. Sources: Mercado de Economía

Social de Madrid, Dries Buytaert Blog, Baran (1964), P2Pvalue, GRASIA UCM, Wikipedia, Microsoft and

unknown others