@original_fractalator@mstdn.io

PArtly correct, but two problems here.. 1) your leaving out that one is a subcategory of the other (distributed is a subset of decentralization, not seperate and distinct from it)... 2) your also mincing terms, or rather, Casey is. I'll try to explain.

First you have the terms for types of network topologies. This is, how the authority of nodes in a communication network are ordered. You have a few relevant types here:

* Star network: this is the type of topologies facebook or twitter employee a simple client-server architecture

* Tree network: this is what the fediverse is, but having only a 2-level tree, clients, servers, and then the servers are all on the same level.

* Mesh network - This is where every node has equal authority and the nodes interconnect and relay between each other with equal authority

Next you have the categories of centralization, these are similar except in this case each is a subset of the other. It mostly fits the diagram you described but has the subset nature I mention

* Centralized - We all know what this means

* Decentralized - Any network with any degree of decentralization, both tree networks and mesh networks are types of decentralized networks.

* Distributed - Any network where there is no centralizations of anykind. **all** distributed networks are decentralized networks, but **not all** decentralized networks are distributed. A mesh network, is both a decentralized and a distributed network, a tree network is a decentralized network but not a distributed one.

Lastly we have the protocols themselves, which often line up with the above categories but dont always:

* client-server - such protocols are almost always centralized and star-servers but do not need to be so. There is a clear distinction between a server in authority and a client. For example a database in a master-slave configuration where clients can connect to either a master or a slave would technically be decentralized despite being client server

* federated - A type of client-server architecure where the authority (federated servers) do not have central control, but clients yield to the authority of a specific server. So it appears centralized from the clients perspective, but is mesh from the servers perspective.

* peer-to-peer - in this architecture there is no sense of a server, the server functions and client functions are both servered by a peer

Its important to note here though that peer-to-peer does **not** always mean distributed, or mesh, though it often does. For example the Gnutella protocol is a peer-to-peer server but the peers negotiate for their right to serve as indexing node, as well as a seed node. As such Gnutella protocol is an example of peer-to-peer that operates in a non-distributed decentralized tree-like network

@derek @realcaseyrollins