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GitTorrent: A Decentralized GitHub

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Re: GitTorrent: A Decentralized GitHub

#21

Post by detaro »

jMyles wrote: post #4
cjbprime wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, author here. I have a mild bias against altcoins, and have heard bad things about Namecoin in particular: that the anti-spam incentives aren't good, leading to illegal files stored in the blockchain itself, and that there's no compact representation (like Bitcoin's Simplified Payment Verification) for determining whether a claimed name is valid without consulting a full history. As I understand it, these two desi…

The notion that a file can be illegal makes as much sense to the internet as a plant being illegal makes to the earth. Especially when it has the side effect of inhibiting what otherwise might be a compelling solution.

Most law enforcement and judges don't ask what makes sense to the internet, even if you ignore users personal opinions about the matter.

Re: GitTorrent: A Decentralized GitHub

#22

Post by sytse »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #16
sytse wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitLab CEO here, thanks for mentioning us as the open source alternative. We think in the short term multiple organizations hosting their own GitLab is the way to go. It is hard to do issues and pull/merge requests in a decentralized way (the OP is impressive but it shows distributed git instead of distributed GitHub). I would like to see federated merge requests http://feedback.gitlab.com/forums/176466-general/sugge…

Not just federated merge requests, but federated one-click cloning. Given a "home" GitLab instance, you should be able to click a button on any GitLab repository (or on repositories elsewhere, based on some spec), and end up with a clone of that repository in your "home" instance. That should be possible via browser support for site-based URL handlers; for browsers without such support, you could also have a URL on t…

Interesting idea. I think it is harder to do this than the federated merge requests because of the permissions, but I love the idea.

Re: GitTorrent: A Decentralized GitHub

#24

Post by sytse »

doragcoder wrote: post #15
shmerl wrote: post #5

> There are philosophical reasons, too: GitHub is closed source, so we can’t make it better ourselves. There is GitLab.

Agreed that the argument is a bit weak, but we would still end up with a major centralized repository for a decentralized protocol. And the changes to make Gitlab more like the proposal would probably be more work than just making the proposal a new project.

I think we would end up with multiple major repositories and many smaller ones. One of the first steps towards more decentralization would be an issue tracker that doesn't under numbers but hashes and that stores its content in a git repo (like the wiki already does). EDIT I noticed in the comments the Fossil already has this, interesting http://fossil-scm.org/index.html/tktview/3711fc7cfd21d7f8684...

Re: GitTorrent: A Decentralized GitHub

#25

Post by JoshTriplett »

sytse wrote: post #22
JoshTriplett wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just federated merge requests, but federated one-click cloning. Given a "home" GitLab instance, you should be able to click a button on any GitLab repository (or on repositories elsewhere, based on some spec), and end up with a clone of that repository in your "home" instance. That should be possible via browser support for site-based URL handlers; for browsers without such support, you could also have a URL on t…

Interesting idea. I think it is harder to do this than the federated merge requests because of the permissions, but I love the idea.

You'd be logged into your "home" instance, which gives you the permissions you need. You click a link on the remote site, which takes you (either directly via URL handler or indirectly via central site redirect) to your home instance with appropriate values filled in, and prompts you to confirm (to avoid CSRF).

Re: GitTorrent: A Decentralized GitHub

#26

Post by js2 »

sytse wrote: post #10
shmerl wrote: post #5

> There are philosophical reasons, too: GitHub is closed source, so we can’t make it better ourselves. There is GitLab.

GitLab CEO here, thanks for mentioning us as the open source alternative. We think in the short term multiple organizations hosting their own GitLab is the way to go. It is hard to do issues and pull/merge requests in a decentralized way (the OP is impressive but it shows distributed git instead of distributed GitHub). I would like to see federated merge requests http://feedback.gitlab.com/forums/176466-general/sugge…

It is hard to do issues and pull/merge requests in a decentralized way

...Over the web...

I mean, Git and Linux are developed via email lists, which is a decentralized way of sending pull/merge requests, isn't it? I guess you could argue the mailing list is hosted on a server, fine. So then fine, usenet.

Yeah, email and nntp are old crufty technologies and there are obviously advantages to having a web based interface and a central place to go for a project. But git itself certainly supports a decentralized mechanism for merging.

So then the question really is, how do you decentralize a web interface, isn't it? The dvcs itself isn't the problem.

Re: GitTorrent: A Decentralized GitHub

#28

Post by sytse »

js2 wrote: post #26
sytse wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitLab CEO here, thanks for mentioning us as the open source alternative. We think in the short term multiple organizations hosting their own GitLab is the way to go. It is hard to do issues and pull/merge requests in a decentralized way (the OP is impressive but it shows distributed git instead of distributed GitHub). I would like to see federated merge requests http://feedback.gitlab.com/forums/176466-general/sugge…

It is hard to do issues and pull/merge requests in a decentralized way ...Over the web... I mean, Git and Linux are developed via email lists, which is a decentralized way of sending pull/merge requests, isn't it? I guess you could argue the mailing list is hosted on a server, fine. So then fine, usenet. Yeah, email and nntp are old crufty technologies and there are obviously advantages to having a web based interfac…

Yeah, decentralizing the web interface is hard. Maybe it is the wrong question. Maybe it is, how can you use usenet to get an overview of issues and do code reviews.

Re: GitTorrent: A Decentralized GitHub

#29

Post by sytse »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #25
sytse wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting idea. I think it is harder to do this than the federated merge requests because of the permissions, but I love the idea.

You'd be logged into your "home" instance, which gives you the permissions you need. You click a link on the remote site, which takes you (either directly via URL handler or indirectly via central site redirect) to your home instance with appropriate values filled in, and prompts you to confirm (to avoid CSRF).

OK, that seems pretty straightforward.

Re: GitTorrent: A Decentralized GitHub

#30

Post by mrisse »

cjbprime wrote: post #18
mrisse wrote: post #14

Can I clone GitTorrent with GitTorrent?

Yes, it works. npm install gittorrent git clone gittorrent://github.com/cjb/gittorrent Or for true decentralization (doesn't get the wanted sha1 from github.com): gittorrent://81e24205d4bac8496d3e13282c90ead5045f09ea/gittorrent

It works! Very cool.
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