Gitstr: Send and receive Git patches over Nostr • Hacker News Board

Re: Gitstr: Send and receive Git patches over Nostr

#21

Post by evbogue » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 11:02 PM UTC

Nzen wrote: post #19

RIMR wrote: post #5

Nostr really feels to me like the blockchain: An incredible novel solution desperately in search of a problem to solve. The engineering behind this is neat, but I have no idea why this is useful.

I found Ryabitsev's 2019 meditation [0] about maybe using git with secure scuttlebutt interesting (though not terribly compelling). Ryabitsev's fantasy scenario involves a developer exchanging git patches for a particular project via phones, to a laptop. Because that person uses secure scuttlebutt, the bug tracking thread is part of the enabling software, rather than out of band. I am of the impression that Ryabitsev…

The referenced article does not mention git-ssb, which was actually used for some time to develop the Patchbay and Decent clients for Secure Scuttlebutt!

https://scuttlebot.io/apis/community/git-ssb.html

Git-ssb went far beyond just sending and receiving patches. You could actually clone, pull, and push a repo between your friends and your friends friends.

Re: Gitstr: Send and receive Git patches over Nostr

#22

Post by _dujt » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 11:12 PM UTC

RIMR wrote: post #13

ecf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nostr is everything that fediverse social networks claim to be, but aren’t. I was shocked to find out that the Lemmy instance I signed up on was blocking dozens upon dozens of other instances, which defeats the entire purpose of a federated network.

This is a strawman argument. The biggest advocateds of federated social media are not promising a fully decentralized and censorship-proof network. Federation is built on trust, and blocking untrustworthy instances is a critical function of any open federated system. There is another side of the Fediverse that operates on the principles you are talking about (eg. Poast, Baest, Spinster, Gleasonator, NoAgendaSocial, N…

If you think only untrustworthy instances are being blocked then I really don’t want to debate about Lemmy with you.

Re: Gitstr: Send and receive Git patches over Nostr

#23

Post by noman-land » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 11:32 PM UTC

_dujt wrote: post #14

AlphaCerium wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then switch to a different one, the point of a federated network is that anyone is able to talk to anyone, not that they have to.

You must realize that the moment you say “just switch to another” you’ve lost 99% of your potential user base. It took me signing up for Lemmy to realize why Lemmy is still a completely dead network.

Decentralization/federation is not about "potential user base". It's about diffusion of control. People need to learn to fish because the SaaS model is a precarious foundation to build a culture on.

We are having this conversation in a more mainstream way now because more people found out how precarious their online cultural foundations are. Your Facebooks and Reddits and Twitters will get ruined by changes of ownership or on the whim of billionaires. You data will be sold out from under you. You will be squeezed for every penny.

The point is to either host your own instance, or use the instance of someone you trust and/or whose moderation policy you align with. It's not to amass a large user base and watch your charts go up.

Re: Gitstr: Send and receive Git patches over Nostr

#24

Post by rakoo » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 11:35 PM UTC

_dujt wrote: post #22

RIMR wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strawman argument. The biggest advocateds of federated social media are not promising a fully decentralized and censorship-proof network. Federation is built on trust, and blocking untrustworthy instances is a critical function of any open federated system. There is another side of the Fediverse that operates on the principles you are talking about (eg. Poast, Baest, Spinster, Gleasonator, NoAgendaSocial, N…

If you think only untrustworthy instances are being blocked then I really don’t want to debate about Lemmy with you.

By definition, an instance will only block instances it doesn't trust, so yes, only untrustworthy instances are blocked by an instance that doesn't trust them

The mistake is believing that all instances behave the same and block the same. The whole point of federation is that every instance chooses who it wants to block.

Re: Gitstr: Send and receive Git patches over Nostr

#25

Post by klabb3 » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 11:38 PM UTC

RIMR wrote: post #5

Nostr really feels to me like the blockchain: An incredible novel solution desperately in search of a problem to solve. The engineering behind this is neat, but I have no idea why this is useful.

> Nostr really feels to me like the blockchain

That’s not strange, given that it’s architecturally similar.

However, blockchains are solving global consensus problems. Nostr doesn’t give a shit. To me, that’s good. One piece at a time. Also, what’s so important about consensus? It’s extremely slow and expensive and mostly matters for financial applications. The less financial speculation the better, imo.

Time will tell I guess if the architecture holds, and also if there are interesting easy-to-use applications on top of it. But I like the simplicity of it a lot. Feels retro and refreshing at the same time.

Re: Gitstr: Send and receive Git patches over Nostr

#26

Post by noman-land » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 11:39 PM UTC

RIMR wrote: post #5

Nostr really feels to me like the blockchain: An incredible novel solution desperately in search of a problem to solve. The engineering behind this is neat, but I have no idea why this is useful.

The problem all these technologies are trying to address is the centralization of control and authoritarianism. Free association is the cornerstone of a free society and our information technology foundation is not currently equipped to handle a totalitarian adversary. Speech should be unsuffocatable.

Re: Gitstr: Send and receive Git patches over Nostr

#27

Post by iteratethis » Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 12:25 AM UTC

AlphaCerium wrote: post #12

ecf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nostr is everything that fediverse social networks claim to be, but aren’t. I was shocked to find out that the Lemmy instance I signed up on was blocking dozens upon dozens of other instances, which defeats the entire purpose of a federated network.

Then switch to a different one, the point of a federated network is that anyone is able to talk to anyone, not that they have to.

In which case the point is useless. It's a pie in the sky statement.

Fediverse instances being too trigger-happy in blocking other instances means the network as whole is less open in comparison to a centralized social network. So, why bother? You have little to no control over whom you can connect to.

Also, "switching" is an alien concept to normal social media users. You never have to "switch" and you never lose your content or followers, exceptions aside when you get yourself into serious trouble.

Re: Gitstr: Send and receive Git patches over Nostr

#28

Post by iteratethis » Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 12:27 AM UTC

rakoo wrote: post #24

_dujt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think only untrustworthy instances are being blocked then I really don’t want to debate about Lemmy with you.

By definition, an instance will only block instances it doesn't trust, so yes, only untrustworthy instances are blocked by an instance that doesn't trust them The mistake is believing that all instances behave the same and block the same. The whole point of federation is that every instance chooses who it wants to block.

That's not how it works at all. Admins pressure other admins in apply the same blocks, or risk getting defederated. The entire thing is ran by power hungry bullies.

Re: Gitstr: Send and receive Git patches over Nostr

#29

Post by wolverine876 » Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 12:53 AM UTC

poulpy123 wrote: post #17

RIMR wrote: post #5

Nostr really feels to me like the blockchain: An incredible novel solution desperately in search of a problem to solve. The engineering behind this is neat, but I have no idea why this is useful.

I tried nostr and I was impressed by how fast it is compared to the alternatives and by how seamless it is to connect to everyone. Unfortunately I'm not interested by the current content and I'm not sure a social media without censorship is viable on large scale

I don't know Nostr, but why can't you moderate anonymous forums? HN is anonymous. Or is Nostr literally non-censorable, in that I can't get an undesireable message or user off my personal feed.

Re: Gitstr: Send and receive Git patches over Nostr

#30

Post by sureglymop » Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 1:10 AM UTC

pjfin123 wrote: post #6

RIMR wrote: post #5

Nostr really feels to me like the blockchain: An incredible novel solution desperately in search of a problem to solve. The engineering behind this is neat, but I have no idea why this is useful.

Nostr is the only payment network I've ever used that lets you send payments of less than $0.10.

Is it really a payment network though? All the payment stuff happens outside of nostr and with different protocols.