WebFinger is a discovery protocol for the web. It aims to bring functionality found in the unix finger tool to the web, using email address-like identifiers or fully qualified URLs to represent people.

Contents 1 Problems 1.1 Use of email address-like IDs 1.2 accnt: schema 1.3 DRY Violation 1.4 Well Known URLs 2 Implementations 3 IRC Transcript

Problems

Use of email address-like IDs

This is widely regarded as a benefit of webfinger (“normal people don’t understand URIs and are more comfortable with email addresses”). Problems with this:

• general problems with email addresses as personal identifiers
• looking like email addresses is great for usability, *until* it turns out that sometimes webfinger IDs aren’t email addresses — opening ambiguity and confusion (is this email address a webfinger ID? Can I send email to this webfinger ID?)
• webfinger IDs are not web addresses — you can’t perform HTTP requests on them
• WebFinger thinking ties us to the widely failed “one-to-many server-to-user” federated social web model, where there is a federation of servers, each with possibly many users on. Taking an indieweb approach where everyone has at best their own domain name, at worst a subdomain, using webfinger becomes tiresome (why tantek@tantek.com when tantek.com will do? or worse, georgelandon@george.landon.org. Lots of typing)

accnt: schema

I never figured out exactly what use this is. Someone else care to explain? --Waterpigs.co.uk 13:45, 10 March 2013 (PDT)

DRY Violation

WebFinger relies on DRY-violating XRD files (which within themselves sometimes repeat data due to incompatible implementations) for storing information. Extra, non-human-readable files are extremely likely to not be maintained. Better to store profile data and links in HTML(+microformats) as visible data.

Well Known URLs

Webfinger relies on well known URLs (namespaced to a certain degree to /.well-known/). Any use of well known URLs limits flexibility, portability etc. HTML links and hypermedia discovery should be utilised instead (if webfinger IDs were webby and could be requested, this would not be necessary!).

Implementations

No indiewebcamp attendees currently make any use of webfinger, but some other related projects do:

• Diaspora use webfinger IDs as their main way of referring to a person, for search and mentions (via salmon
• StatusNet uses webfinger for discovery and mentions (via D*’s custom version of salmon)
• identengine.com’s profile discovery API accepts webfinger IDs as input

IRC Transcript

2011-06-28 #indiewebcamp:

[10:38am] tantek: The IndieWeb does not care about WebFinger - because it doesn't need it.

[10:38am] dbounds1: What makes you say that?

[10:38am] tantek: because it wasn't even *mentioned* the entire weekend.

[10:38am] brennannovak: I whole heartedly agree with tantek about activity streams

[10:39am] tantek: it turns out, when you focus on actual pragmatic/practical discussions of what *you* need to build/code/ux/design for *your* indie web site, people DO NOT CARE about WebFinger

[10:39am] tantek: they *so* don't care that it doesn't even come up

[10:39am] tantek: dbounds1 - thus I'm fairly convinced that WebFinger is pretty much a waste of time

[10:40am] dbounds1: webfinger or discovery in general?

[10:40am] tantek: oh we did plenty of work on discovery

[10:40am] tantek: just turns out none of it needed webfinger

[10:41am] dbounds1: is any of this discovery conversation documented?

[10:41am] brennannovak: tantek: hrm... I kinda feel web finger (or the whole OStatus stack) wasn't discussed much all weekend because everyone was talking about different dimensions of what the "indie web" means

[10:41am] dbounds1: Personally, I'm not interested in anything that leverages XML.

[10:42am] tantek: brennannovak - nope, it was because we were focused on *actual* practical solutions for *ourselves*

[10:42am] brennannovak: true

[10:42am] tantek: rather than architectures for theoretical needs of the masses

[10:42am] tantek: which is what nearly all other groups in this space are hung-up on

[10:42am] dbounds1: Depending on what you're building XRD/JRD and WebFinger are quite useful. I'd be interested in hearing what alternatives were proposed / suggested / used from the weekend.

[10:43am] brennannovak: yes, that is what I mean... we all were just focusing on our own implementations- which seem to be more about consuming / posting to large sites like Twitter / Facebook already

[10:43am] tantek: brennannovak - we were prioritizing in personal and practical ways.

[10:44am] brennannovak: yes, whoot!

[10:44am] tantek: and it turns out, when you do that, such things as XRD/WebFinger are actually not necessary

[10:44am] tantek: or rather

[10:44am] tantek: there's more important practical work to be done *first*

[10:44am] brennannovak: precisely

[10:44am] tantek: when you get around to actually building a site that *YOU* will use for YOURSELF