Is this Project abandoned?

[kaykaul]

Is this project abandoned? I was searching for real distributed peer to peer git systems and found this awesome repo. Kudos for creating this technology. What is the roadmap for this project?

[cjb]

Hi! Not really abandoned, but I haven't been writing new code. Some things we could use help with:

• an Electron desktop client
• integrating a source of decentralized single-namespace naming, like blockstack, but in JS
• working out how to distribute/decentralize pull requests and issues

[eonist]

What stopped the progress? What part was to time consuming? Complexity or did you discover an essential part that wasn't easy to implement? Great effort anyway!

[adlai]

@eonist haven't you ever heard of the larval stage?

Have patience, and the muse will strike again!

[eonist]

A bit ambiguous. Waiting for the muse then.

[cjb]

The usual things happened: new job, and new kid. :) I'm also hoping for an easy to use blockstack clone in JS to show up without me having to write it.

[eonist]

@cjb: Thanks for your response. And congrats on the new chapters in your life! What do you think about the saying that we shouldn't try to fit everything into the blockchain? That the blockchain may not be suitable for everything etc? And would there be an alternative to this for this project? Or any ideas surrounding this dilemma?

[cjb]

Hm. Are you talking about bitcoin's blockchain in particular, or the concept of shared public decentralized append-only data structures?

I think decentralized apps should use shared public decentralized append-only data structures because it's very difficult to form a secure consensus without them, and there are many problems that require reaching consensus.

I don't have any particular attachment to Bitcoin. It's the coin people are most likely to own, which makes it the most useful at the moment. But if (e.g. Ethereum) an altcoin explicitly endorses decentralized naming (I think Ethereum does) and is practical -- i.e. people can get it, and it's well-designed, and it doesn't introduce too much friction to the app -- then that altcoin could totally be used here as well.

[eonist]

@cjb: Right, Bitcoin powers the blockchain as it currently stands. Something has to finance the life of such a database, thats bitcoin at the moment. Isn't there a limit to how much data the block chain could hold, i mean if everyone started to store things in the blockchain it would get pretty crowded. Also Wont there be a cost to storing things in the blockchain?

[cjb]

Arguably the cost is already paid for by the OP_RETURN fee, and using OP_RETURN shows other users of Bitcoin that this is a null transaction that they don't have to store forever. (In technical terms, OP_RETURN doesn't create "UTXO entries".) And we're talking about small strings, not storing entire files.

So my sense is that this is about the least objectionable use of Bitcoin to store data.

[eonist]

Right. So you need: blockstack-cli or blockstack-server in js? And what exactly are you storing in the blockchain? Authentication or? Also Issues and pull-requests can be done at a later stage maybe and just instead focusing on making git working.

[cjb]

Storing strings that look like:

@gittorrent!cjb!81e24205d4bac8496d3e13282c90ead5045f09ea

(@service!username!pubkey)

[cjb]

Maybe just blockstack-cli is fine. (But it'd be ideal if the whole stack was JS.)

[kaykaul]

Hmm It seems someone has started the JS library.
https://github.com/blockstack/blockstack-js

WRT the blockchain bits, I've opened #79 to discuss switching the concept to Ethereum instead.

[inoas]

A very valuable part of github is its commenting, review system etc, if not its most valuable part.
What about an alternate route of running an app server decentralized.
The work to do would be to create an environment where you could run decentralized apps. Then you could leverage gitlab or any other similar tool and run it on top... in theory.

alternative to that you would need to make features similar to github in a mobile/desktop client that just pushes data to the network ... so there is no need for a server - really hard if you ask me but would be awesome.

good luck!