There's no standard, no central resource to learn about it and too many concurrent projects.
The blockchain, Secure Scuttlebutt, IPFS, Radicle, Mastodon, Project Xanadu, to name a few. Where does one even start?
IP is already decentralized.
Only a fool tests the depth of water with both feet.
>>3
You are being very insensitive to our snake brethren. Check your privilege, bipedal scum.
None of these are "the decentralized internet", since "the internet" is already decentralised. IP -- Internet Protocol -- is a "internet layer" protocol. Most of what you mention is at least based on the application layer (not sure about Xandu, but is that really in the same category?). As such they are all different attempts, in the same way as the "centralised internet" is too disperesed (youtube, facebook, twitter, ...).
To put it differenly, if you want a decentralised twitter, you won't be cconsidering the Blockchaon or Xandu.
>>3
I understand it's a buzzword, they also call that "the Web 3.0". I don't know the proper name. Decentralized web applications? Peer-to-Peer applications?
To put it differently, if you want a decentralized twitter, you won't be considering the Blockchain or Xanadu.
What should I be considering then? Secure Scuttlebutt?
>>6
I'm not him.
I'd consider IPFS for content storage as twitter is an immutable platform. I don't know what to do to index followers and such in a decentralized platform.
There are multiple decentralized Twitter alternatives, based on activitypub: https://fediverse.party/
Mastodon and Pleroma are the big ones.
>>7
Yes, nodes advertising is a problem of its own.
>>8
My understanding is that Mastodon, similarly to Usenet, still relies on central servers to distribute contents. I don't want to use a decentralized Twitter. It's just that I'm seriously lacking knowledge in this field and I'm looking for a protocol to study.
>>6
SSB is an experiment in distributed gossip networks, they aren't what one would classically consider a microblog network, but to my understanding they could do it. Their focus is more on enabling offline/mainly offline usage. This is also a real peer-to-peer network, while most ActivityPub implementations gear towards a decentralized model (more servers with fewer clients).
>>9
Consider understanding the networks and what they do, before studying their protocols.
Mastodon, or any ActivityPub server implementation doesn't necessarily distribute content amongst servers, and certainly doesn't rely on a central instance. AP is based on JSON-LD, that was created by the RDF people. That means they they heavily employ links and formal specification of their content. If you want to have a general idea of how it works, consider reading the introduction to the speicfication: https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#Overview
If you want to have a general idea of how it works, consider reading the introduction to the speicfication: https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#Overview
Thanks. Seems like a perfect gentle introduction.
OP should centralize the resources, haha!
>>12
Exactly. A single page centralizing all the resources on decentralized web applications that would be distributed among peers in a decentralized fashion. But I don't know if I should use SSB or radicle for this!
>>13
Why use either? Or why just use one? A document is a document, it can be hosted on various platforms. Write the document first, and then think about where to publish it.
>>14
I can't write about all these protocols if I haven't studied them thoroughly. And for that I need to read this document first, or any similar centralized synthetic resource.
>>15
Are you suggesting to write or are you wishing someone wrote this document? Because I'm telling you that there is no interest in such a thing.
>>15
You can just study each software thoroughly on its own. Once you are done with this stage, you can start comparing them and synthetizing a high-level overview of the whole field. Think of it like a literature review (or survey). It's a lot of work, but it is really not that complicated.
I really like IPFS, anon. I was thinking about creating a replica of this site with some IPFS integration. I don't have the know how to build a platform completely decentralized on IPFS so I thought about hosting content on IPFS.
I might be talking nonsense but perhaps you could store content on a IPFS node through the merkle-tree and make it trivial to replicate to other nodes.
https://old.reddit.com/r/MUD/comments/fsf59a/discord_lambdamoo_experiment/
I'm currently trying (as a end user) a few so-called decentralized web applications.
Mastodon: https://joinmastodon.org/ | https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon
SSB Patchwork: https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork
Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.org/ | https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed
Peertube: https://joinpeertube.org/ | https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube
Notabug: https://notabug.io/ | https://github.com/notabugio-archived/notabug-peer
(Notabug is built on GUN: https://github.com/amark/gun )
All of these seem to work incredibly well. The only problem is that they're still social networks where you're supposed to socialize. I'm not exactly used to that.
>>19
There's something inherently wrong in connecting to those old and nice universes through proprietary electron applications when all you need is a Telnet client!
>>20
There's also https://manyver.se.
>>22
Looks like a Facebook clone but it's only available for mobile phones.
>>9
The closest existing thing to Mastodon is probably E-Mail. Anyone with an account on a site running Mastodon's software can interact with users on any other site running the same or compatible software. Content is hosted across multiple different servers owned by different people.
Decentralism is an amalgam of modularism, redundance, and competition. As I know it, that there's no standard, no central resource to learn about it and many concurrent projects is the point. But, without a lone authority telling us what's good, each is left to his own taste. We all know how horrible most people's tastes are. (Even mine, but at least I do what I can, consciously, to elevate my actual.) So, where does one even start? I posit to start with the one with the best documentation. How easy is it to learn about? cf. literate programming
hello
does it really work?? i believe it does
nah
>>26
That's more or less the dilemma I'm faced with. I'm afraid to invest time in a dead end technology. My tastes are absolute shit.
I posit to start with the one with the best documentation. How easy is it to learn about? cf. literate programming
sound advice
Nobody mentioned DAT (a protocol for distributed, peer-to-peer file sharing with version history) and the Beaker browser
https://dat.foundation/
https://beakerbrowser.com/
https://secushare.org/ looks promising but hasn't reached prototype status yet
The Internet is broken: https://secushare.org/broken-internet
A visual novel to explain why federated decentralized server systems suck: http://my.pages.de/dsn-vn/
PolderCast: Fast, Robust, and Scalable Architecture for P2P Topic-Based Pub/Sub: https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01555561/document
The decentralized Internet is a mess
The Internet is completely decentralized. If you are interested in learning about distributed alternatives to the decentralized Internet, then maybe you should start with the things which have been actively used for the most time. NNTP, BitTorrent, and Git for example are all very interesting protocols, with interesting communities supporting them.
>>33
Studying the bittorrent protocol is actually a good place to start.
enabling offline/mainly offline usage
That's self-inconsistent. You can't use what's offline. If it's usile, it's online. Enabling use of it entails making it online.
The closest existing thing is probably E-Mail
This is instructive. eMail is a great decentralized peer-to-peer application, with some major flaws. Some are trying to compete with this great, flawed, popular system.
The Internet is completely decentralized.
No, it's not. And there's no such thing. Nothing is completely decentralized, except grey goo vel cetera. An internet, fundamentally, is a noncentralizate. Nonetheless, a centralizate can comprise noncentralizates.
I don't know the proper name. Decentralized web applications? Peer-to-Peer applications?
How about calling it ``you have your stuff, I have my stuff; let's have our stuff interact, without any 3^{rd}-party'' as an extension of the ``what happens among some mutually consenting persons that doesn't affect anyone else, is the concern of only those mutually consenting persons, unless those mutually consenting persons make it someone else's concern'' principle---using general personhood, naturally.
It seems that you're lacking some fundamental understanding. The 1^{st} question you should ask is whether you understand each fundamental informatical, relevant mathematical. (You might read Knuth's The Art Of Computer Programming.) If you understand these, then it should be easy to learn about a particular informatical, starting with special informaticals, germane mathematicals. (The 0^{th} question you should ask is whether you understand solipsism.)
I can't write about all these protocols if I haven't studied them thoroughly. And for that I need to read this document first, or any similar centralized synthetic resource.
No. It's sufficient to read such a document first. Probably, it's not necessary, but better, to understand about what you write.
What would Knuth do?
study each [related] software thoroughly ... comparing them
synthetizing a high-level overview
Each serious project should be such that any general intelligence can easily work with it.
Write the document first, and then think about where to publish it.
And when you write the document, consider each way you can publish it, to write it so that it's easy to translate to a form that's easy to publish in many (try: each) those ways.
No, it's not. And there's no such thing. Nothing is completely decentralized, except grey goo vel cetera. An internet, fundamentally, is a noncentralizate. Nonetheless, a centralizate can comprise noncentralizates.
I mean I guess the Internet technically is not completely decentralized because of ICANN, but I think that's an abstraction layer below what we're talking about here. Decentralized is defined as not centralized. So at the level of abstraction we're talking about the Internet is decentralized but not distributed, there are lots of servers, which aren't centrally planned, but there is still a client server distinction.
No, it's not. And there's no such thing. Nothing is completely decentralized, except grey goo vel cetera.
What? Of course there are decentralised networks, human relations or relations within a virtual social network are decentralised, are prominent examples.
WebTorrent Workshop
``Decentralized'' is defined as not centralized.
No, it's not. The prefix ``de-'' (likewise, ``dis-'') signifies retraction (posterior inverse); i.e. deX X = e (e = identity) e.g. decentralize after centralize = null action.
To be perfectly clear: decentralize = de- ( ( (center) -al) -ize);
decentralize = de- centralize,
centralize = central -ize,
central = center -al.
>Nothing is completely decentralized, except grey goo vel cetera.
What? Of course there are decentralised networks, human relations or relations within a virtual social network are decentralised, are prominent examples.
Nothing is completely decentralized. Read thoroughly and comprehend what was read before attacking us with your banality.
Your email address is supposed to be something like username@computename, and sending you an email should be a message from my machine to your machine. If we're both using Google mail, we use a central server. That's the ``centralized Internet'' and it wasn't meant to be like that.
>>40
There's still an active UUCP community if you're into that.
>>41
I'd love to know how to find it.