• Registered: 2008-05-04
  • Posts: 2

Topic: Why not a distributed architecture?

I guess I never really realized that chumby.com/Chumby Co. was a single point of failure for my chumby. Especially now, this seems like a terrible design choice. Why can't people host their widgets individually, wherever they please, and our chumbys be smart enough to look for each widget at the specified uri? Someone might decide to host a lot of widgets, as chumby.com did in the past, but, as a user-community, we shouldn't be excited about any solution that puts us at risk of this same thing happening again in the future: that is, we shouldn't be satisfied if a single entity rehosts everything there used to be. Instead, we need a new architecture that let's anyone host a widget and enables any chumby to connect to that widget. (Note: I've never really hacked on my Chumby, so if I'm totally missing something that is impossible to design around, let me know.)

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
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  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,209

Re: Why not a distributed architecture?

One of the options being considered, and one I strongly think we should have in the long run, is a distributed version, which relies much less, if at all, on the centralized service.  I've described how that might work in another thread.

The current system is a "lifeboat" from the old system and necessarily works in a similar fashion to buy time to build a better solution.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2013-02-05
  • Posts: 8

Re: Why not a distributed architecture?

@Duane: I looked around the forums but can't find that other thread you just mentioned. Can you post a link?

Since chumby is based on linux, shouldn't it be possible to set up something like apt-get or yum? Even better: something like homebrew?

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
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  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,209

Re: Why not a distributed architecture?

Well the file system itself is read only - in some of the devices, the file system can be mounted read/write, but in the case of the chumby Classic, the most common device, there's only 64MB total.  On that one, the file system itself is compressed, and thus can't be modified.

Any system that requires the devices themselves to be part of the distribution network would require that classics have a USB flash drive in them at all times.

Duane's Website

  • From: Germany, Berlin
  • Registered: 2013-03-02
  • Posts: 20

Re: Why not a distributed architecture?

Duane wrote:

Any system that requires the devices themselves to be part of the distribution network would require that classics have a USB flash drive in them at all times.

The Classic got two of them (USB Slots) and there are USB flash drive in size of a thumbnail, why you think that thats a problem?

  • Registered: 2012-02-07
  • Posts: 535

Re: Why not a distributed architecture?

Because if a user doesn't put a flash drive in their Chumby Classic, it becomes unusable.  Asking users to make an additional hardware investment (no matter how cheap) at this point in the Chumby's (re-)life cycle is unreasonable, I think. 

Something to keep in mind is, for every user who posts here and expresses interest in an alternative Chumby ecosystem (paid, P2P, whatever), there are hundreds if not thousands who are sitting there wondering why they lost all their widgets.  Some will just turn off their Chumbies and figure they had a good run, and maybe fire them back up some time later just for the heck of it... some will shrug and figure it still shows the time and plays their alarms so that's good enough... and some may peek over here but be too intimidated/etc to actually register.

Any of the people in the above-mentioned groups (especially the first two) will have no clue that their Chumby Classic suddenly requires a flash drive to operate properly; even if some alert screen were provided advising them of this, many would likely not want to go to the trouble of getting one and installing it.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of a P2P system; perhaps having an "opt-in" feature for C1/I3/C8/I8 to allow them to act as host nodes, as well as a bit of clever linux & windows coding to allow people to turn their home computers or hosted servers into host nodes, might be the ticket.  Requiring that all devices be hosts though is asking for trouble though.

  • From: A not too distant future
  • Registered: 2013-03-03
  • Posts: 478

Re: Why not a distributed architecture?

Doktor Jones wrote:

Because if a user doesn't put a flash drive in their Chumby Classic, it becomes unusable.  Asking users to make an additional hardware investment (no matter how cheap) at this point in the Chumby's (re-)life cycle is unreasonable, I think. 

Something to keep in mind is, for every user who posts here and expresses interest in an alternative Chumby ecosystem (paid, P2P, whatever), there are hundreds if not thousands who are sitting there wondering why they lost all their widgets.  Some will just turn off their Chumbies and figure they had a good run, and maybe fire them back up some time later just for the heck of it... some will shrug and figure it still shows the time and plays their alarms so that's good enough... and some may peek over here but be too intimidated/etc to actually register.

Any of the people in the above-mentioned groups (especially the first two) will have no clue that their Chumby Classic suddenly requires a flash drive to operate properly; even if some alert screen were provided advising them of this, many would likely not want to go to the trouble of getting one and installing it.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of a P2P system; perhaps having an "opt-in" feature for C1/I3/C8/I8 to allow them to act as host nodes, as well as a bit of clever linux & windows coding to allow people to turn their home computers or hosted servers into host nodes, might be the ticket.  Requiring that all devices be hosts though is asking for trouble though.

I agree! In fact, I actually started a topic about this, but your idea seems much more refined. By the way, what you said about the flash drives is correct, but I think the user base for the chumby already is the user base with flash drives. If I could get seamless widgets on my I3.5 just by the addition of a flash drive, I certainly would. However, an opt-in feature probably is the way to go.

8 Reply by sky123 (edited by sky123 2013-03-07 22:36:21)

  • From: Germany, Berlin
  • Registered: 2013-03-02
  • Posts: 20

Re: Why not a distributed architecture?

Doktor Jones wrote:

Something to keep in mind is, for every user who posts here and expresses interest in an alternative Chumby ecosystem (paid, P2P, whatever), there are hundreds if not thousands who are sitting there wondering why they lost all their widgets.

If using an USB flash drive is to mutch for them, what do you think will they do when they get charged for a service they always got for free?

  • From: Portogruaro (Venice), Italy
  • Registered: 2013-03-05
  • Posts: 8

Re: Why not a distributed architecture?

brianwc wrote:

I guess I never really realized that chumby.com/Chumby Co. was a single point of failure for my chumby. Especially now, this seems like a terrible design choice. Why can't people host their widgets individually, wherever they please, and our chumbys be smart enough to look for each widget at the specified uri? Someone might decide to host a lot of widgets, as chumby.com did in the past, but, as a user-community, we shouldn't be excited about any solution that puts us at risk of this same thing happening again in the future: that is, we shouldn't be satisfied if a single entity rehosts everything there used to be. Instead, we need a new architecture that let's anyone host a widget and enables any chumby to connect to that widget. (Note: I've never really hacked on my Chumby, so if I'm totally missing something that is impossible to design around, let me know.)

This is a really good point!

lucaliuto's Website

10 Reply by bobsz (edited by bobsz 2013-03-10 19:26:26)

  • bobsz
  • Blue Buddy
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  • From: Long Beach NY
  • Registered: 2011-01-01
  • Posts: 546

Re: Why not a distributed architecture?

I don't get the "single point of failure" thing. brianwc's been registered here since 2008, apparently enjoying his Chumby all that time. Come on, the things have way outlived their warranties. Considering how many other kinds of devices have become obsolete in the past 5 years, I think Chumby's looking pretty resilient.

Chumby's heading into it's seventh year since being created in 2006. Try to find your old cell phone from 2006 and think about using it now- no GPS, no pushed content, probably made by Motorola. Think you could get any tech advice like this forum for keeping a 2006 Motorola cell going? [del](and why would you want to???)[/del] I think the only thing Chumby 'failed' were a few venture capitalists. The device and ecosystem have proven themselves, and continue to evolve.

  • Registered: 2013-03-10
  • Posts: 3

Re: Why not a distributed architecture?

I have a Motorola V60 from 2001 I still use. It has GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900 and GPRS data/SMS which works fine with both voice and SMS messaging which I use it for. If Motorola stopped providing any data to it (which they do not provide anyway), it would/does continue to work. That is not true for my Chumby One (which is newer), which is what brianwc's point was.

  • From: Austria
  • Registered: 2007-10-12
  • Posts: 179

Re: Why not a distributed architecture?

bobsz wrote:

Try to find your old cell phone from 2006 and think about using it now

I actually did this some weeks ago, as I had problems with my current phone. It has nearly the same features as my current phone, so it was no problem. (Only SMS storage was very limited on the old one.)

  • From: Portogruaro (Venice), Italy
  • Registered: 2013-03-05
  • Posts: 8

Re: Why not a distributed architecture?

I guess there's a bit of a misunderstanding on Chumbies business model :-)

It's obvious that originally the device price INCLUDED all costs to run the original Chumby infrastructure, therefore the service provided wasn't free at all, you just payed for it at the very beginning!
Now the fact that early adopters (people having bought their chumbies back in 2006) have more than fairly got all what they payed for, if not more, is most probably true. Customers having bought a device last year possibly not.
The infrastructure is in fact a dangerous single point of failure, like all GSM antennas disappearing next year...

I guess the point is now that, if there's a chance (thanks to Duane!) to keep using Chumbies the way they were supposed to, this could be backed by a distributed architecture, where costs are shared (maybe in some kind of open model?) and therefore there's no single point of failure anymore.

If the point is instead something like: "I bought a Chumby on eBay for 20 bucks and now I wanna use it free of any further cost for the next 20 years", then ...

lucaliuto's Website

14 Reply by bobsz (edited by bobsz 2013-03-10 12:42:05)

  • bobsz
  • Blue Buddy
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  • From: Long Beach NY
  • Registered: 2011-01-01
  • Posts: 546

Re: Why not a distributed architecture?

Sorry for getting *very* off base with the cell phone analogy. I use several "old" devices that I love. Hope this didn't distract too much from my main points.