Will there be a Distributed HTTP?

#1

Post by prostoalex » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 3:28 PM UTC

Will there be a Distributed HTTP?
mnot.net

Re: Will there be a Distributed HTTP?

#2

Post by lazyloop » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 5:45 PM UTC

No.

Re: Will there be a Distributed HTTP?

#3

Post by nexys » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 5:49 PM UTC

wtf is this guy talking about?

Re: Will there be a Distributed HTTP?

#4

Post by Kalium » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 5:51 PM UTC

A more fundamental question, I think, is "Will there be effective distributed authority?". So far, this is problematic at best.

Re: Will there be a Distributed HTTP?

#5

Post by pkinsky » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 5:52 PM UTC

This is actually a pretty cool idea (although perhaps badly explained, given the other comments here).

Here's how it could work: IPFS ("In some ways, IPFS is similar to the Web, but IPFS could be seen as a single BitTorrent swarm, exchanging objects within one Git repository") is a globally distributed hash-addressed versioned filesystem. (see: http://ipfs.io/)

They have a mirror of their homepage hosted on IPFS, here: http://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmeYYwD4y4DgVVdAzhT7wW5vrvmbKPQj...

To answer the question: distributed GET and HEAD are absolutely possible.

Re: Will there be a Distributed HTTP?

#6

Post by kragen » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 6:03 PM UTC

This is one of the most crucial things we need to make free software viable again. In 2006, I wrote that the only solution to the problem of proprietary services was to "build these services as decentralized free-software peer-to-peer applications, pieces of which run on the computers of each user": https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-tol@canonical.org/msg001...

And, in particular, I wrote a few months later that replacing HTTP URLs for naming content is necessary and nearly sufficient: https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-tol@canonical.org/msg001...

We still have a long way to go, but it's heartening to see so much work toward solving the problem! Perhaps one of the systems mnot links to will evolve to solve the problem; perhaps it will be something that we haven't started to build yet.

This is crucial to the future of civilization and to the longevity of your personal work. Nearly all the effort that went into proprietary software in the 1980s and 1990s has been lost rather than becoming part of the cultural heritage of humanity, in the way that Emacs and GCC have. Similarly, everything you invest today into proprietary web services is ultimately destined for the dumpster, whether it's code you write to build them or data you store in them. We need an alternative that has a chance of lasting.

Re: Will there be a Distributed HTTP?

#7

Post by gress » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 6:11 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #6

This is one of the most crucial things we need to make free software viable again. In 2006, I wrote that the only solution to the problem of proprietary services was to "build these services as decentralized free-software peer-to-peer applications, pieces of which run on the computers of each user": https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-tol@canonical.org/msg001... And, in particular, I wrote a few months later that rep…

How do you foresee the decentralized production of CPUs being achieved?

Re: Will there be a Distributed HTTP?

#8

Post by sktrdie » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 6:26 PM UTC

There's already a quite large distributed "HTTP" being used everyday: BitTorrent's DHT network. URIs are just the keys of the distributed hash table. Keys are also mutable so one can change the content stored at specific keys. Right now it's being used to serve very large files and not HTML/CSS/JS files. Things like Project Maelstrom are a step in the right direction.

Problem is that it's hard to find things, just like it was hard when the Web started. There are opportunities for the next "google" of this new DHT space.

Re: Will there be a Distributed HTTP?

#9

Post by traverseda » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 6:31 PM UTC

gress wrote: post #7

kragen wrote: post #6

This is one of the most crucial things we need to make free software viable again. In 2006, I wrote that the only solution to the problem of proprietary services was to "build these services as decentralized free-software peer-to-peer applications, pieces of which run on the computers of each user": https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-tol@canonical.org/msg001... And, in particular, I wrote a few months later that rep…

How do you foresee the decentralized production of CPUs being achieved?

A bit of a non-sequiter, but I'll bite.

Replicating toolboxes. Or self-replicating benchtop factories.

Microcontrollers could be produced using dip-pen nanolithigraohy, or a few other techniques.

Of course we need decent open source atomic force microscopes first.

There will always be components that can't be produced on that kind of scale. In reprap parlance we call the "vitamins". An apt metaphor.

Re: Will there be a Distributed HTTP?

#10

Post by marknadal » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 6:32 PM UTC

I met Mark and Tim Berners-Lee at Extensible Summit and was very happy that they are still actively fighting for the World Wide Web in its full distributed, decentralized glory.

I do work on synchronization in distributed systems, and would like to add my database, http://gunDB.io/, to the list. Why? Because it answers his questions in the "Some State and Processing Really Wants to Be Centralised" section. If you want more info on this, check out the github repo, or ask me.

Anybody interested in these subjects should be at https://2015.distributed-matters.org/ber/, Kyle Kingsbury will be doing the keynote and later on in the day I'll be presenting my protocol.

Mark's "Modifying The Web is Scary" section is important, I do see a lot of people reinventing the wheel but it isn't too hard to get everything to work over PATCH (sadly a verb which didn't take off but is in the specification) and upgrading to WebSockets.

Overall, great post. I hope more people talk about this.