Why Make FileMQ?
Why make a file distribution system? I already explained how to send large files over ÃMQ, and itâs really quite simple. But if you want to make messaging accessible to a million times more people than can use ÃMQ, you need another kind of API. An API that my five-year-old son can understand. An API that is universal, requires no programming, and works with just about every single application.
Yes, Iâm talking about the filesystem. Itâs the DropBox pattern: chuck your files somewhere, and they get magically copied somewhere else, when the network connects again.
However, what Iâm aiming for is a fully decentralized architecture that looks more like Git, that doesnât need any cloud services (though we could put FileMQ in the cloud), and that does multicast (i.e., can send files to many places at once).
FileMQ has to be secure(able), has to be easily hooked into random scripting languages, and has to be as fast as possible across our domestic and office networks.
I want to use it to back up photos from my mobile phone to my laptop, over WiFi. To share presentation slides in real time across 50 laptops in a conference. To share documents with colleagues in a meeting. To send earthquake data from sensors to central clusters. To back up video from my phone as I take it, during protests or riots. To synchronize configuration files across a cloud of Linux servers.
A visionary idea, isnât it? Well, ideas are cheap. The hard part is making this, and making it simple. ...
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