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LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

blog.documentfoundation.org

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Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#11

Post by Brian_K_White »

sdiacom wrote: post #6
pyr0hu wrote: post #2

I don't know, talking about blockchain became such an extreme topic that one can't just talk about it, even if it's a note that "We had a chat with Eth Foundation" and people are coming with foaming mouth. The article does not mention that they are thinking about _crypto_ but _blockchain_, which, seems like not a lot of people know about, does not 100% means "im going to release a shitcoin, haha, rugpull". It's insan…

Good. The mere mention of "combining existing successful open-source product with blockchain" should get about the same reaction as "combining fruit bowls with metal spikes". This is a good thing, it means that people are waking up to what crypto actually is. There is no successful or interesting combination of "useful thing" and "blockchain", unless your definition of success is siphoning money from technologically…

You just exemplified their point.

original post: we're not talking about crypto

comment: they're not talking about crypto but people still just say "F them crypto is bad!"

this comment: F them because crypto is bad!

Crypto (money, nfts) is bad, I think smart contracts are a mistake too, and I don't think LO needs blockchain either, but the objection is more like the one someone else said about, if there's some feature that needs it, fine, but don't just look for some excuse to use a solution with no problem.

But also it would be absurd to say that cryptography, authentication, and povenence have no valid application with documents.

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#12

Post by willeh »

pyr0hu wrote: post #2

I don't know, talking about blockchain became such an extreme topic that one can't just talk about it, even if it's a note that "We had a chat with Eth Foundation" and people are coming with foaming mouth. The article does not mention that they are thinking about _crypto_ but _blockchain_, which, seems like not a lot of people know about, does not 100% means "im going to release a shitcoin, haha, rugpull". It's insan…

It is not insane, far too many orgs are asking how can we shoehorn blockchain into X. The end-result is usually some vaporware, some weird commercialisation, or outright fraud. Libreoffice is a foundation, it should act in accordance with its charter. The public, likewise, should hold its officers accountable for acting in a way best serves these ends.

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#13

Post by web3isgoing »

Phelinofist wrote: post #4

What possible use case could this be for?

Document signing: vitalik.eth signs a PDF, everybody can verify the PDF is signed by his private key. He has to broadcast his public key for this, and probably also a content hash of the document so that we can be sure we are verifying the correct PDF. He can broadcast this on Twitter, but that is not a secure and tamper proof ledger, and it is centrally owned, and it's not a great storage mechanism for this system to scale to thousands or millions of signatures. LibreOffice could create a new service like keybase.io but that is also centralized and we saw how that went. Another alternative is these messages are broadcast through a public and decentralized ledger.

How does this fit with zero knowledge proofs that the blog mentions? There may be signature attestations you can make that you want to be private from the receiver, but made in a way that the receiver can still verify the signature is valid.

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#14

Post by web3isgoing »

bartread wrote: post #10
h4kor wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there are no use cases for blockchains. Humanity spent billions (trillions?) of $ on this technology and there is no use for it. Now the people who sank their money into this, desperately try to find some fools to pass the hot potato to.

> Because there are no use cases for blockchains. I think this is it or, at least, to moderate slightly, there are few valid use cases for blockchain. The top comment, from Theo Jackson, captures it really well: "Please don’t. If there is a requested feature that _requires_ blockchain I’d be interested, but “possible ways to combine LibreOffice with blockchain technologies” sounds like a solution in search of a probl…

Ethereum energy consumption is now negligible:

https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#15

Post by The_Colonel »

emptysongglass wrote: post #9
h4kor wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there are no use cases for blockchains. Humanity spent billions (trillions?) of $ on this technology and there is no use for it. Now the people who sank their money into this, desperately try to find some fools to pass the hot potato to.

That isn't true. A blockchain powers Secure Scuttlebutt, Jami, Urbit, and has use anywhere a verified supply chain is needed. Because some people have politicized it, now all blockchains are scams or "useless". But this is demonstrably not true. It's just a technology and people have misused it but that doesn't render the technology itself useless or a scam.

I get your point, but ...

> A blockchain powers Secure Scuttlebutt, Jami, Urbit

I've honestly never heard about any of these. But I have heard/read about many other "uses" of blockchain, which ultimately boil down to scam. There are possible use cases, they just drown in the sea of scams.

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#16

Post by belter »

pyr0hu wrote: post #2

I don't know, talking about blockchain became such an extreme topic that one can't just talk about it, even if it's a note that "We had a chat with Eth Foundation" and people are coming with foaming mouth. The article does not mention that they are thinking about _crypto_ but _blockchain_, which, seems like not a lot of people know about, does not 100% means "im going to release a shitcoin, haha, rugpull". It's insan…

Maybe because nobody else has seen other use than shitcoins. Arguing this is not about crypto, but blockchain, when nobody has seen other use cases is the disingenuous part of all this.

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#17

Post by hiq »

emptysongglass wrote: post #9
h4kor wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there are no use cases for blockchains. Humanity spent billions (trillions?) of $ on this technology and there is no use for it. Now the people who sank their money into this, desperately try to find some fools to pass the hot potato to.

That isn't true. A blockchain powers Secure Scuttlebutt, Jami, Urbit, and has use anywhere a verified supply chain is needed. Because some people have politicized it, now all blockchains are scams or "useless". But this is demonstrably not true. It's just a technology and people have misused it but that doesn't render the technology itself useless or a scam.

> A blockchain powers Secure Scuttlebutt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Scuttlebutt doesn't have the word blockchain on it, and from reading the protocol section, I don't think it uses a public blockchain as defined there: https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2019/02/theres_no_g...

So you're just talking about something else, but as Schneier argues, anything other than a public blockchain is nothing new and has little to do with all the hype beyond the confusing names.

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#18

Post by web3isgoing »

You would think a message board called "hacker news" would be more open to blue sky thinking. Zero knowledge proofs and a tamper proof ledger of timestamped cryptographic signatures could open up new use cases that are different than relying on central authorities.

One idea, document signing: vitalik.eth signs a PDF, everybody can verify the PDF is signed by his private key. He has to broadcast his public key for this, and probably also a content hash of the document so that we can be sure we are verifying the correct PDF. He can broadcast this on Twitter, but that is not a secure and tamper proof ledger, and it is centrally owned, and it's not a great storage mechanism for this system to scale to thousands or millions of signatures. LibreOffice could create a new service like keybase.io but that is also centralized and we saw how that went. Another alternative is these messages are broadcast through a public and decentralized ledger.

How does this fit with zero knowledge proofs that the blog mentions? There may be signature attestations you can make that you want to be private from the receiver, but made in a way that the receiver can still verify the signature is valid.

EDIT: Since I am on a throwaway account, my replies are being throttled. This could be another application of ZKP: create a proof that my main account has significant karma to post, without sacrificing my privacy.

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#19

Post by dhdgrygev »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #11
sdiacom wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. The mere mention of "combining existing successful open-source product with blockchain" should get about the same reaction as "combining fruit bowls with metal spikes". This is a good thing, it means that people are waking up to what crypto actually is. There is no successful or interesting combination of "useful thing" and "blockchain", unless your definition of success is siphoning money from technologically…

You just exemplified their point. original post: we're not talking about crypto comment: they're not talking about crypto but people still just say "F them crypto is bad!" this comment: F them because crypto is bad! Crypto (money, nfts) is bad, I think smart contracts are a mistake too, and I don't think LO needs blockchain either, but the objection is more like the one someone else said about, if there's some featur…

There are no real world use cases of blockchain tech besides crypto. Or can you demonstrate one?

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#20

Post by forgotpwd16 »

pyr0hu wrote: post #2

I don't know, talking about blockchain became such an extreme topic that one can't just talk about it, even if it's a note that "We had a chat with Eth Foundation" and people are coming with foaming mouth. The article does not mention that they are thinking about _crypto_ but _blockchain_, which, seems like not a lot of people know about, does not 100% means "im going to release a shitcoin, haha, rugpull". It's insan…

>even if it's a note that "We had a chat with Eth Foundation"

That's how it starts everytime. "We're just talking about it" ends up in shoving blockchains where they aren't needed.

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