How to
- display info of local users?
- display info of users of trusted servers?
- find a global / public address book?
- share information to a global / public address book?
Nextcloud version: 11.0.2 (stable) - 11.0.2.7
@frank had last summer some visions regarding this feature. Listen from 1:05:00 here:
Radio interview in German.
Wow, found a great blog of @bjoern: https://blog.schiessle.org/tag/nextcloud/
Seems that in NC 12.0 more features are coming:
Future work
The global address book can return many results for a given name. How do we know that we share with the right person? Therefore we want to add the possibility to verify the users email address, website and Twitter handle in Nextcloud 12. As soon as this feature is implemented the global address book will only return users where at least one personal setting is verified and also visualize the verified data so that the user can use this information to pick the right person.
Further, I want to extend the meaning of “Contacts” in one of the next versions. The idea is that “Contacts” should not be limited to trusted servers but include the users personal contacts. For example the data set to “Contacts” could be shared with every person to which the user already established at least one federated share successfully, or to all contacts with a Federated Cloud ID in the users personal address book. This way we will move slowly in the direction of some kind of decentralized and federated social network based on the users address book. This will also enable users to easily push their new phone number or other personal data to all their friends and colleagues, things for which most people use centralized and proprietary services like so called “business networks” these days.
Another interesting possibility, made possible by the global address book is to move complete user accounts from one server to another. Given that the user published at least some basic information on the global address book, they could use it to announce their move to another server. Other Nextcloud servers could find this information and make sure that existing federated shares continue to work.