Re: [rtcweb] Regarding Federation Arguments

[Wolfgang Beck <[e-mail]>]

The trapezoid federation model has important drawbacks:

- The server-to-server protocol can be too simple: if it doesn't cover
you requirements, you have to wait for standardization. If your
requirement is too specific, it will never be standardized.

- The server-to-server protocol can be too complex: your application
may not need feature x of the protocol (eg forking,
early media), but your software still has to support the complexities
associated with it.

The server-to-server protocol determines the complexity of the server
or JS client. You can let the server translate the server-to-server
protocol into something simpler or let the JS client deal with it. But
you can't escape
the protocol's complexity.

- The server-to-server protocol can even be too simple *and* too
complex at the same time: you don't need feature x's complexities, but
you desperately need feature z. Which is not covered by the standard.

- If there are many providers, the number of server-to-server
relationships -- which are trust relationships -- become unmanageable.
It's quite possible that hubs will emerge to which smaller providers
connect. The hub needs to see all signaling traffic. We're not talking
about a tightly controlled hub in a walled garden, but about Internet
giants who have a commercial interest in profiling user behavior.

Of course, identity providers in the model described in
draft-beck-rtcweb-alt-ic-00 can profile their users, too. They get
less information, though. With client certificates, only the called
RTCWEB provider knows about a call.


Wolfgang Beck