Radicle: A peer-to-peer alternative to GitHub • Hacker News Board

Re: Radicle: A peer-to-peer alternative to GitHub

#131

Post by htrap » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

lftherios wrote: post #124

htrap wrote: post #106

We are building https://gitopia.org - Permanent Data Storage provided by Arweave - Works from within git with the help of git-remote-helper `npm install -g git-remote-gitopia` so no need to learn new tooling - Built-in incentivization to token holders who also take part in the governance of Gitopia - Token holders share revenue made by the platform - You can mirror your GitHub repositories now using the Github Mirror…

Thank you for sharing your work and great to see more attempts on the same problem. I am one of the maintainers of the Radicle project. The main problem we encountered with similar systems that rely on blockchains / dht for storage is the problem of 'blockchain poisoning'. This is when someone deliberately adds illegal content to an append-only source in hopes to make the sole act of replicating the project legally p…

Considering the illegal content is added by someone who has access to the repository. The right way to address that would be via community voting, which then can decide to hide it from the platform since the data is permanent on Arweave. This governance workflow will enable the community to make such content policies.

Re: Radicle: A peer-to-peer alternative to GitHub

#132

Post by p5a0u9l » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

bob1029 wrote: post #113

dsign wrote: post #73

We kind of need this yesterday... what's the point of having a decentralized git if the issues are centralized at Github? (which, not to make too fine a point of it, is owned by Microsoft). Even if you host your own Gitlab, there is always that day when the hard drive of the server fails and the ops have to spend a weekend restoring backups while changing hosting company because who crashes the hard-drive of an expen…

We use Github and we are not that interested in the decentralized aspects of git itself. The low-friction UX and integration of issues/PRs/code makes it lightyears easier to ramp new developers than if I had to sit down and also explain Jira & Jenkins to them. The fact that git is centralized or decentralized crosses our minds precisely zero times per week. In the absolute worst case where Microsoft somehow loses eve…

this is naïve. the problems being addressed do exist, independent of whether this particular solution will work. that’s great that the status quo is working for you, but it’s silly to then assert that progress cannot be made.

Re: Radicle: A peer-to-peer alternative to GitHub

#133

Post by FpUser » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 3:07 PM UTC

scoopertrooper wrote: post #65

cloudhead wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So when GitHub is down, how do users know to pull from your mirrors? How about push?

Notes in the readme? How long are you expecting one of the biggest websites in the world to be down?

For some people like forever. Developers can be banned because their country/area happen to fall under US sanctions.

Re: Radicle: A peer-to-peer alternative to GitHub

#134

Post by htrap » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 3:17 PM UTC

simias wrote: post #128

htrap wrote: post #106

We are building https://gitopia.org - Permanent Data Storage provided by Arweave - Works from within git with the help of git-remote-helper `npm install -g git-remote-gitopia` so no need to learn new tooling - Built-in incentivization to token holders who also take part in the governance of Gitopia - Token holders share revenue made by the platform - You can mirror your GitHub repositories now using the Github Mirror…

I'm not sure I see the point of building a complex platform with governance and whatnot. What I want is an easy way to publish my projects and for other people to contribute, I need something more like email (independent, self-hosted servers with a well defined protocol to communicate between them) than Facebook. I don't care about the governance of my git remote, or getting money out of it. I care about it being rel…

I feel that there is a real need for permanent Storage with respect to Open Source.

Code breaks when old packages are unpublished or repositories deleted. Push once and fetch forever solves this.

Also Centralized solutions are providing open source collaboration tools for free, storage for free, because of their revenue from enterprise customers.

What happens when they decide to shut down? or change their policies? or just comply with wrongful takedown notices?

Re: Radicle: A peer-to-peer alternative to GitHub

#135

Post by flas9sd » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 3:17 PM UTC

at the end of the LPC2019 talk "Reflections on kernel development process, quality and testing" by Dmitry Vyukov there's a slide with some Radicle examples. The following slide he links to a post by Konstantin Ryabitsev "Patches carved into developer sigchains" that shows Securescuttlebut on IPFS as an alternative to Email as decentralized system (search for git-ssb).

Re: Radicle: A peer-to-peer alternative to GitHub

#136

Post by d0100 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 3:20 PM UTC

nikitaga wrote: post #38

What a nice funky design. That front page has a soul, unlike almost everything else I see nowadays.

Nice design, but I couldn't understand anything. I have a 21' screen and it way to wide. Our peripheral vision was made for motion, if you want human attention, put it in the center!

I can only digest the content properly if I stand a couple of meters away

Re: Radicle: A peer-to-peer alternative to GitHub

#137

Post by lftherios » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 3:26 PM UTC

amself wrote: post #93

hobofan wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the cryptocurrency hype funds/funded most of those projects and/or the prospect of adding a cryptocurrency to the projects causes VCs to fund those projects. In this particular case Radicle came out of OScoin (or is the new incarnation of it?) and was funded by BlueYard.

Right. I was surprised to see they chose to implement social coding after integrating with Ethereum, but it makes sense considering all the hype.

we are actually working on both problems in parallel. it's just that the skillset required and complexity is very different.

Re: Radicle: A peer-to-peer alternative to GitHub

#138

Post by indymike » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 3:28 PM UTC

bob1029 wrote: post #113

dsign wrote: post #73

We kind of need this yesterday... what's the point of having a decentralized git if the issues are centralized at Github? (which, not to make too fine a point of it, is owned by Microsoft). Even if you host your own Gitlab, there is always that day when the hard drive of the server fails and the ops have to spend a weekend restoring backups while changing hosting company because who crashes the hard-drive of an expen…

We use Github and we are not that interested in the decentralized aspects of git itself. The low-friction UX and integration of issues/PRs/code makes it lightyears easier to ramp new developers than if I had to sit down and also explain Jira & Jenkins to them. The fact that git is centralized or decentralized crosses our minds precisely zero times per week. In the absolute worst case where Microsoft somehow loses eve…

Disclaimer: I love Github. From a commercial development standpoint (ie. my day job), it's fantastic.

BUT: What a lot of developers, myself included, feel like is the source control in git is great. The project management tools (issues, actions, etc...) require centralization of certain processes, that for some projects (open and closed source), don't fit well. Sometimes the 'how it works' is a bad fit. Other times, it's where it has to be to work. For example, running CI on a container on Azure from actions. Yes you can move where it runs. But for some projects, localhost is where that should happen. I'm really happy to see people working on this, because it will be just as transformative as git and Github has been.

Re: Radicle: A peer-to-peer alternative to GitHub

#139

Post by bob1029 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 3:32 PM UTC

p5a0u9l wrote: post #132

bob1029 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use Github and we are not that interested in the decentralized aspects of git itself. The low-friction UX and integration of issues/PRs/code makes it lightyears easier to ramp new developers than if I had to sit down and also explain Jira & Jenkins to them. The fact that git is centralized or decentralized crosses our minds precisely zero times per week. In the absolute worst case where Microsoft somehow loses eve…

this is naïve. the problems being addressed do exist, independent of whether this particular solution will work. that’s great that the status quo is working for you, but it’s silly to then assert that progress cannot be made.

Well maybe our "naive" approach might be worth investigating. Because we put so little time into ridiculous missions like "distributed issues because git is also distributed", we are able to focus more on the product, customers, and processes. You know, things that actually drive business value and pay out everyones' bonus checks at the end of the year.

We have actually considered doing a complete in-house implementation of the things that GitHub handles, because we do already have an in-house management system that integrates with GitHub's API. But, we realized that we would then be in the business of maintaining what is effectively the GitHub product for a market size of 1 customer.

Re: Radicle: A peer-to-peer alternative to GitHub

#140

Post by bob1029 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 3:34 PM UTC

indymike wrote: post #138

bob1029 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use Github and we are not that interested in the decentralized aspects of git itself. The low-friction UX and integration of issues/PRs/code makes it lightyears easier to ramp new developers than if I had to sit down and also explain Jira & Jenkins to them. The fact that git is centralized or decentralized crosses our minds precisely zero times per week. In the absolute worst case where Microsoft somehow loses eve…

Disclaimer: I love Github. From a commercial development standpoint (ie. my day job), it's fantastic. BUT: What a lot of developers, myself included, feel like is the source control in git is great. The project management tools (issues, actions, etc...) require centralization of certain processes, that for some projects (open and closed source), don't fit well. Sometimes the 'how it works' is a bad fit. Other times,…

I argue that centralization of certain processes is the entire point. How the hell are you going to manage a complex software project if everyone has a different version of the issues pertaining to it? Simply seeing an issue comment instantly update in GitHub as I am scrolling through has saved me tons of aggregate hours in wasted time on changing requirements.