Moving Decisions to the Edge:
A really robust system will be as general as possible. It will make as few architectural decisions as possible; letting users, in all their rippling circles, make their own choices.
Our thesis is the Prose Object model. If documents are expressed as lists (technically maps) of key=values and linked together, in "prototype inheritance", then they become efficient, computable, codifiable, interoperable, malleable, etc.
This leaves many dimensions of freedom, including interface, database, methods of communication and signature, etc.