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IPFS is the Distributed Web

ipfs.io

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Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#21

Post by jcoffland »

idlewords wrote: post #9

I worry that this is another example of throwing technology at a social and political problem. That the current web is centralized has little to do with its technical design, and everything to do with economic and structural incentives that have made it that way. It's tempting to say "start afresh", but we'll just be trading our current problems for a new set of problems IPFS introduces. It's a law of nature that pro…

> in particular the hard issue of how to re-decentralize it.

Isn't that exactly the problem ipfs is attempting to address. What kind of solution do you want and why does this one not work for you? It's easier to discard someone else's idea than it is to evaluate it's merits. I'm not sure this is the solution but it looks interesting and it appears to interoperate with the existing Web via gateways even though the author does not make this clear early on in the documentation.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#22

Post by haadcode »

knocte wrote: post #15
viraptor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To use js-ipfs, you still need to host the script somewhere. Doesn't help when the whole host doesn't respond.

Right, ok, but then ipfs.io is already using ipfs-js itself? Because some time ago I checked and the reference impl was python, and the ipfs-js port was not complete yet.

(IPFS dev here)

js-ipfs, the Javascript implementation of IPFS, has made a lot of progress in the past 6 months. It's still early but totally usable.

We've been working on go-ipfs and js-ipfs interop so that browser nodes can talk to "native" nodes. It's not fully ready yet but soon. This will open a lot of doors for a more advanced network and applications using IPFS.

See https://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs.

As for your question re. ipfs.io using js-ipfs, the answers is no, it doesn't use js-ipfs implementation yet.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#24

Post by viraptor »

fosh wrote: post #10

How do hosting providers fit in here, if at all? E.g., if I want to host a website on IPFS, do I publish it from my own machine and then wait a healthy amount of time for the content to be absorbed by the ether, or is there some way I can encourage other nodes to pick it up without requiring end-users to actively seek out my fresh material?

There's http://filecoin.io - still waiting to be started. It's connected to the ipfs project.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#25

Post by runeks » 

    > Each network node stores only content it is interested in [...]
Isn't that the issue here? Storing data that will maybe be there later isn't really storing data. People want to publish something that must always be available, so why inject data into the IPFS network and hope it will be there in a year, rather than set up a $10/yr VPS?

    > With video delivery, a P2P approach could save 60% in bandwidth costs.
In my opinion, this may be true, but total costs will be greater. P2P solutions are awesome because they are resilient, not because they are cheaper. Distributing pirated movies by dumping them on public FTP servers is much cheaper than BitTorrent. BitTorrent appeared because the centralized method was not resilient enough against adversaries, not because it was cheaper (quite the contrary).

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#26

Post by riffraff »

idlewords wrote: post #9

I worry that this is another example of throwing technology at a social and political problem. That the current web is centralized has little to do with its technical design, and everything to do with economic and structural incentives that have made it that way. It's tempting to say "start afresh", but we'll just be trading our current problems for a new set of problems IPFS introduces. It's a law of nature that pro…

> It's a law of nature that problems are always conserved.

I'd agree that some social issues cannot be solved by technology, but many have been.

E.g., without looking at the information age: in London before the Clean Air Act thousands people literally died of the smog, but the CAA was made possible only by increased availability of electricity and gas heating.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#27

Post by david-given »

haadcode wrote: post #22
knocte wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, ok, but then ipfs.io is already using ipfs-js itself? Because some time ago I checked and the reference impl was python, and the ipfs-js port was not complete yet.

(IPFS dev here) js-ipfs, the Javascript implementation of IPFS, has made a lot of progress in the past 6 months. It's still early but totally usable. We've been working on go-ipfs and js-ipfs interop so that browser nodes can talk to "native" nodes. It's not fully ready yet but soon. This will open a lot of doors for a more advanced network and applications using IPFS. See https://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs . As for you…

Is there a working ipfs demo page anywhere? I've had a look around and can't find one (the closest appears to be Orbit, but the ipfs-js version is down).

I'm particularly interested in using ipfs pubsub capabilities. It looks like an interesting way of allowing multiple users of a web app to talk to each other without needing (much) server side support.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#28

Post by lukaslalinsky »

runeks wrote: post #25

> Each network node stores only content it is interested in [...] Isn't that the issue here? Storing data that will maybe be there later isn't really storing data. People want to publish something that must always be available, so why inject data into the IPFS network and hope it will be there in a year, rather than set up a $10/yr VPS? > With video delivery, a P2P approach could save 60% in bandwidth costs. In my op…

If I get it right, the idea is that if you want to make sure it's there one year later, you set up your own server and host the files on your own. IPFS just allows others to distribute a mirror of the files.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#30

Post by runeks »

lukaslalinsky wrote: post #28
runeks wrote: post #25

> Each network node stores only content it is interested in [...] Isn't that the issue here? Storing data that will maybe be there later isn't really storing data. People want to publish something that must always be available, so why inject data into the IPFS network and hope it will be there in a year, rather than set up a $10/yr VPS? > With video delivery, a P2P approach could save 60% in bandwidth costs. In my op…

If I get it right, the idea is that if you want to make sure it's there one year later, you set up your own server and host the files on your own. IPFS just allows others to distribute a mirror of the files.

Why would nodes in the IPFS network voluntarily act as a load balancer for my VPS? Usually I have to pay for load balancing, so I'm a bit suspicious when someone claims I can get it for free from IPFS.
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