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EU Funding for Developer Tools for the Decentralized Web

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Re: EU Funding for Developer Tools for the Decentralized Web

#51

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

dusted wrote: post #45

How is the web not already decentralized? everyone's got an IP address and is free to plug in a server at home.. If the EU should do anything, it should be require by law that any Internet connection comes with a non-carrier-gade-natted ip address, and that it can be made static if the customer desires, for free.

Yeah, this ain't gonna happen. Telecoms in Europe are way to tightly politically connected (at least in Germany and Austria) to force them into stuff like this.

Plus, most consumers here don't care about their IP status (most don't know what an IP is), they mostly care if they can stream YouTube and play Fortnite good enough on their connection.

I wish we could force (and fund) telecoms to extend their fiber network as at least in Germany and Austria it's awful, like going back in Eastern Europe but 15 years in the past.

Re: EU Funding for Developer Tools for the Decentralized Web

#52

Post by tifadg1 »

lxpz wrote: post #39
superkuh wrote: post #11

It's disappointing to see this project, like many other decentralized web projects, has tunnel vision with respect to "cool technologies". The real distributed web is not non-web protocols, blockchains, or the like. The real distributed web is THE WEB HTTP servers and every single individual running their own web server to host their content (and then syndicate on whatever walled gardens are most profitable after). C…

Thank you for stating this. I absolutely agree with you, and this is what we are trying to do with the Deuxfleurs collective which is also getting funded by the EU to work on our project Garage [0, 1]. We are working on making self-hosting easier, and also more reliable, by exploiting geographical redundancy [2]. We will use the grant money mostly to develop Garage, our self-hosted data server (an object store implem…

For an outsider, yet one that has a soft spot for decentralization, I can't understand what niche the projects are solving.

Technical users can already rent a vps for very cheap and do it there. HA works only as well as it was tailored to - no generic solutions will change that, unless they impose harsh complexity.

Who are the potential users?

Re: EU Funding for Developer Tools for the Decentralized Web

#53

Post by cookiengineer »

butz wrote: post #47

How to get EU funding for a new, intependent browser engine and internet browser?

...the internet browser has to be based on a blockchain, otherwise the NGI fund won't accept it.

Source: wanted to apply with my Web Browser that is peer to peer but doesn't go with the blockchain hypetrain.

Re: EU Funding for Developer Tools for the Decentralized Web

#54

Post by Ruphin »

drKarl wrote: post #13

IPFS is pretty awesome, and the ideas it builds upon like a Merkle tree DAG are really cool. I love the idea of DApps or Decentralized apps. I've played with some cool projects like MetaMask etc. But I really don't like the idea that all (most?) DApps are based on Ethereum and require huge amounts of Gas to run. Can't we have DApps without Blockchain/Ethereum? I know IPFS doesn't use Ethereum, and neither do things l…

Only operations that change the state of the Ethereum network require gas. You can use an application and as long as you only perform read operations, you don't require any gas.

For example, in a decentralized Youtube-like application, you can browse and watch videos without using any gas. You would only need gas if you wanted to add content to the system, like uploading a video or posting a comment.

If such an application required no cost to write data, what would protect the system against spam? Who would bear the costs of operating the application?

Re: EU Funding for Developer Tools for the Decentralized Web

#55

Post by black_puppydog »

mhitza wrote: post #2

Got a bit of envy for the people that get funds/grants for their idea. I'm always "lucky" enough to find the call for proposals that match my skills and interest past their closing date. Must be a sign :)

These NGI grants come around quite regularly. I'm sure they have a newsletter. :)

Re: EU Funding for Developer Tools for the Decentralized Web

#56

Post by cookiengineer »

superkuh wrote: post #11

It's disappointing to see this project, like many other decentralized web projects, has tunnel vision with respect to "cool technologies". The real distributed web is not non-web protocols, blockchains, or the like. The real distributed web is THE WEB HTTP servers and every single individual running their own web server to host their content (and then syndicate on whatever walled gardens are most profitable after). C…

I agree with your arguments completely, and I've come to similar conclusions (except with dat and ipfs) when I decided how to build my peer to peer web browser network.

Unfortunately, in the real world peer to peer is a different problem due to carrier-grade NATs everywhere. I have to implement malware-like exfiltration and smuggling techniques in order to build an end to end encrypted network, because pretty much down the infrastructure is unreliable and manipulated by ISPs wherever they can, including unencrypted DNS or even DNS via TLS ports being blocked completely off the internet. [1]

Without those protocol in protocol techniques there'll always be a single point of failure, like with all "dApps" that are actually just gatekeepers on a centralized domain as a point of entry for their network. Those usually can be blocked off so easily that it's ridiculous to call them decentralized.

Somehow, between the 2000s and now, the internet got so crippled for endusers that it boggles my mind how that happened without resistance.

[1] https://github.com/tholian-network

Re: EU Funding for Developer Tools for the Decentralized Web

#57

Post by vkk8 »

wb14123 wrote: post #41

I never really understand the hype behind blockchain related technologies. The low transaction throughput, high compute resource demands makes it pretty unusable in most cases. Lots of workaround either has security problem or violated the idea of decentralization of blockchain, which makes it meaningless to use blockchain. Oh, there is also PoS which doesn't need CPU for mining, but doesn't anyone think it's irony t…

I'm also puzzled by the fact that EU is funding this. Usually states and state-like entities are exactly the ones who don't want people to use decentralized technologies, because they often make laws difficult or impossible to enforce.

In fact, wanting to circumvent laws is the only reason why people en mass would ever want to use decentralized technologies. I'm not necessarily always against this (there are some really stupid laws that should be broken), but I'm pretty annoyed by how people try to pretend that there is demand for these technologies for any other reason.

Re: EU Funding for Developer Tools for the Decentralized Web

#58

Post by openfuture »

magila wrote: post #49
dusted wrote: post #45

How is the web not already decentralized? everyone's got an IP address and is free to plug in a server at home.. If the EU should do anything, it should be require by law that any Internet connection comes with a non-carrier-gade-natted ip address, and that it can be made static if the customer desires, for free.

The web as a whole is decentralized, but the HTTP URL scheme can only reference assets through a single authoritative hostname (or IP address). Thus the ability to retrieve a particular asset is always beholden to a single, privledged entity. When people talk about the "decentralized web" they are generally talking about combining a means of referencing assets in a self-authenticating manner (e.g. using cryptographic…

Precisely. The internet is all the protocols, the web is HTTP(S), the dweb would be protocols like bittorrent and now with zero knowledge proofs we can hash executions of programs also...

The biggest problem is how do you prove your right to participation? Proof of work and proof of stake are both laughably inadequate. Machine learning things are being applied incorrectly imo but it'll converge eventually.

Re: EU Funding for Developer Tools for the Decentralized Web

#59

Post by ognarb »

cookiengineer wrote: post #53
butz wrote: post #47

How to get EU funding for a new, intependent browser engine and internet browser?

...the internet browser has to be based on a blockchain, otherwise the NGI fund won't accept it. Source: wanted to apply with my Web Browser that is peer to peer but doesn't go with the blockchain hypetrain.

I have a project that is currently funded by ngi and it has nothing to do with Blockchain...

Re: EU Funding for Developer Tools for the Decentralized Web

#60

Post by cookiengineer »

ognarb wrote: post #59
cookiengineer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...the internet browser has to be based on a blockchain, otherwise the NGI fund won't accept it. Source: wanted to apply with my Web Browser that is peer to peer but doesn't go with the blockchain hypetrain.

I have a project that is currently funded by ngi and it has nothing to do with Blockchain...

On the open calls page [1] it seems that the only open fund in the context of a web browser is the one related to search and discovery.

All the other ones specifically mention blockchain based technologies.

Or did your project get funded by NLNet directly via another fund?

[1] https://www.ngi.eu/opencalls/

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