12 ms·

Status – A Mobile Ethereum OS

232 points by state 9y ago

k0mplex 9y ago
But what's it for?
- coolspot 9y ago
  web3
  - beaner 9y ago
    Could they call it anything less self-explanatory?
    - robomc 9y ago
      Well, the other option is to explain how it's like existing methods of delivering online functionality, but decentralised - a thing that nobody really values - plus also incredibly slow, fairly complex, and you have to pay for everything that happens, and also the entire ecosystem is centred around a volatile speculation-rife currency and an approach to financial transactions which has been full of real and significant security problems - including the theft of millions of dollars from the flagship implementation right under the noses of many of the core devs, despite paying corrupt levels of money to other core boosters of the platform for completely hopeless security reviews...
      - cookiecaper 9y ago
        Totally with you here. The blockchain is an awesome experiment and prototype of what a good decentralized, verifiable system could look like, but it has several significant flaws, some of which are obvious even in the limited context of a worldwide ledger (bitcoin). In particular, throwing away 47 zetaflops/s of computing power (the current compute power of the bitcoin network [0]) and all of the electricity required to generate it in order to verify the transactions of the tiny quantity of people currently using bitcoin is obscene, and the mechanism that encourages this should be recognized as the unscalable disaster that it is. Basing "Web 3.0" on such mechanisms is, frankly, a ridiculous proposition. And all of this "decentralization" is thrown out the window by virtually everyone, because to store a full copy of the blockchain on your local disk, you need -- let's see -- $ du -sh /mnt/apps_syn/dot_bitcoin/ 118G /mnt/apps_syn/dot_bitcoin/ 120 gigabytes of space. So you end up just trusting Coinbase or whoever you have your wallet from anyway, no different than trusting your bank. If Coinbase had an Ethereum moment, they could fork the chain that all of their wallets use, and with their MtGox-like domination of the market, any resistance to their fork would seriously damage Bitcoin overall. I imagine most miners would go along with it because they don't want their btc to drop to 0. Consider also that there is virtually no transparency into the actual miner operations. The biggest miners are behind "pools" -- relays -- and though the idea is that pools are made up of tens of thousands of independently-controlled computers, I suspect that if we could see through to which machines were actually doing most of the work, bitcoin would suddenly seem a lot less "decentralized". This is not to mention that miners behind pools are totally at the pool's mercy, or that 5 pools hold over 50% of the network's hashrate, and that these pool operators have been in one room together to decide on blockchain policy (re blocksize, which miners are incentivized to oppose, since smaller blocksize == higher transaction fees). That is little different than big banks meeting under the auspices of the Federal Reserve to control monetary policy. It's very sad that people saw bitcoin and thought it was a good idea to expand its flawed model out, instead of accepting it for the forward-thinking prototype it was and thinking about how to improve it before jumping all in. [0] per https://bitcoinwatch.com https://bitcoinwatch.com
        mbrock 9y ago
        I work full time on Ethereum development, and I don't have any kind of maximalistic opinions about decentralization, the evils of banks, or whatever. It's just a very interesting technology with a really great momentum. But everything is flawed under the sun. There is no perfect technology that can completely decentralize authority with no resource demands. Or maybe Satoshi's reincarnation will come and deliver a new mind-blowing concept that makes blockchains completely deprecated. That would be pretty cool. But until then, you know. By the way, Ethereum's roadmap includes switching away from proof of work towards proof of stake, which doesn't waste electricity. This model has been used successfully, for example by Bitshares. It also includes a light client protocol so mobile nodes don't need much disk space or processing power. [As always, Hacker News is full of critics...]
        cookiecaper 9y ago
        This isn't a nitpick about how the blockchain isn't perfect. IPv4 is imperfect, HTTP is imperfect, etc. The blockchain is ill-conceived and impractical. At this point, I only check in on the bitcoin community casually, so I'm not familiar with proof of stake, but I'm glad to hear work is underway to resolve that glaring issue in Ethereum. I'll definitely read up on it. Thanks for the pointer. >[As always, Hacker News is full of critics...] Indeed. We come here to discuss, which will involve some criticism. Working on Ethereum is not really an indictment, so don't worry. :)
        mbrock 9y ago
        That's what I mean, you're not familiar with what's happening, yet you comfortably dismiss the whole idea of blockchain as ill-conceived and impractical. So both of your major criticisms are being actively addressed by very smart people who plan to have them solved in the near to medium term future. Does that in any way change your view of blockchain? Maybe it could possibly work? Or, no, it's just a hopeless dumb idea that will surely crash?
        cookiecaper 9y ago
- carlbennetts 9y ago
  Status is decentralized messaging platform to access the Ethereum Network (Web 3.0). Essentially we're building a network that's completely operated by it's own users, and runs entirely on peer-to-peer technologies. Users can send encrypted messages, payments, and can interact and chat with decentralized applications. What's exciting about Ethereum is it removes the need not only for centralized servers, but also for intermediaries that were traditionally required in order to partake in trade or legal agreements. A good place to start if you'd like to learn more: http://www.ethdocs.org/en/latest/introduction/what-is-ethereum.html http://www.ethdocs.org/en/latest/introduction/what-is-ethere...
coolspot 9y ago
If Apple would allow this in AppStore, it would be uuuge.
- neilalexander 9y ago
  Near enough this exact idea is in the App Store in the form of another app called "Token".
fiatjaf 9y ago
Man, this is a great idea. EDIT: Hey, you can actually download it right now if you join the beta.
- carlbennetts 9y ago
  Thanks so much for trying it out! We're also completely open source so contributors are most welcome (https://wiki.status.im/contributing/development/introduction/ https://wiki.status.im/contributing/development/introduction...) - also feel free to come say Hi on our Slack (http://slack.status.im/ http://slack.status.im/), we're friendly people :)
LeoPanthera 9y ago
Remarkably similar to Token from Coinbase, which launched just yesterday: https://www.tokenbrowser.com https://www.tokenbrowser.com (and which is available in the iOS app store)
- carlbennetts 9y ago
  Coinbase are nice people, and I hope Token is a success. If you'd like to compare the two products please do check out the tech stack - Status is completely decentralized, so doesn't rely on any centralised servers :)
  - px43 9y ago
    Is status.im using whisper for messaging? Is there end to end crypto between users?
- j_s 9y ago
  Interesting! I wonder how Apple will get their 30%?
  - woofyman 9y ago
    >Interesting! I wonder how Apple will get their 30%? The 30% is for paid apps and in app purchases of app content. If you use the Amazon app, for example. They don't take a cut.
    - j_s 9y ago
      I'm not sure exactly how Apple draws the line (this looks like a store for digital stuff). If this approach gets popular (cryptocurrency to skip the 30% cut) I'm sure they'll pay more attention. https://www.amazon.com/forum/amazon%20appstore%20deals/ref=cm_cd_pg_next/134-7847803-9012215?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx9N1C8PP4X4PK&cdPage=2&cdThread=Tx3TD08VZK5MVRI https://www.amazon.com/forum/amazon%20appstore%20deals/ref=c... I'm not on board with the 30% commission explanation. On the Amazon ios app (normal retail app, not video only), I can buy everything but videos. Wouldn't they be hesitant to share 30% of the other billion dollars of revenue they do via ios? https://www.quora.com/How-do-online-retailers-with-iOS-apps-selling-physical-products-get-around-the-30-in-app-commission-fee?share https://www.quora.com/How-do-online-retailers-with-iOS-apps-... Apple will only charge you the 30% of products sold through IAP. The caveat here is that if you sell digital goods through the app you don't any option other than using Apple's IAP. also, in another answer: It also doesn't include all digital goods. Only those digital goods whose services would be consumed within the app are accounted for the 30% free by Apple.
marclave 9y ago
Great idea, and the landing page is incredibly beautiful. Well done.
adamrezich 9y ago
I haven't followed Ethereum since the whole DAO debacle. I was very excited about the technology but the way the whole hard fork/Ethereum Classic thing was handled really turned me off. Has progress been made on formally verifying contracts or anything like that? And why aren't more people bothered by the whole hard fork thing?
- LeoPanthera 9y ago
  I think the current Bitcoin situation is really showing that rapid, organized hard forks when problems occur is an extremely good thing. Bitcoin is currently frozen in time, since there are two major competing clients, and neither dare make any incompatible changes for fear of creating a fork, and right now neither has a majority. A decentralized cryptocurrency is a lovely ideal, but in the dirty real world, Ethereum and its ilk will win out.
  - adamrezich 9y ago
    I understand and my knowledge of cryptocurrencies is very limited, but from what I understood, there was no "bug" in Ethereum itself; there was a loophole in the DAO contract script that someone exploited. To my uneducated-about-cryptocurrencies mind, hard-forking based on that sets a terrible precedent, and shows that users of the currency are willing to have that happen again if a similar situation arises, giving me absolutely zero trust in the system.
    - LeoPanthera 9y ago
      I at least partially agree with you, and it's definitely a grey area. If Ethereum hadn't been so young at the time, the fork may not have happened.
      - mook 9y ago
        I haven't kept track of this very much, and am curious: why might the fork not have happened if Ethereum was older? Assuming the undesirable transaction happened relatively close the the point of forking, only a small number of descendent transactions would need to be reverted, right?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ptrinh 9y ago
Nice one from Singapore ;-)
gorkemyurt 9y ago
Is the intention here to run mini react-native apps (Dapps?) within a bigger app (status app itself)?
floflo79 9y ago
So awesome to see these dapps get to the next level!
Jabanga 9y ago
Does Status use SPV?
ganwar 9y ago
You can find a comprehensive list of dapps here: http://dapps.ethercasts.com http://dapps.ethercasts.com Developer activity in Ethereum is increasing at a very fast pace. This is only supposed to accelerate after the upcoming metropolis upgrade hard fork.
Ethcoin 9y ago
Whenever there is an article on crypto currencies, I see a subset of accounts come out of the woodwork to praise them. Whether you've invested in Ethereum should be mentioned.
kkapelon 9y ago
Worst name ever. It will be very hard for people to search about this (not to mention the SEO problems)
bschwindHN 9y ago
This app uses re-natal, a wrapper of React Native for ClojureScript. It also uses a ClojureScript framework called "re-frame" for data flow and "reagent" for wrapping React. It's a pleasure to work with (most of the time, there are hiccups here and there) and you can develop for iOS and Android simultaneously. I highly recommend checking it out. https://github.com/drapanjanas/re-natal https://github.com/drapanjanas/re-natal https://github.com/status-im/status-react/ https://github.com/status-im/status-react/
- mej10 9y ago
  Seconded! re-frame/reagent/re-natal are great. Really fun to use.
ksahin 9y ago
Amazing project, and great landing page btw. It seems the Ethereum ecosystem is becomming more and more mature, that's great !
- bshimmin 9y ago
  I actually thought this was a Stripe product when I first saw the landing page - and I mean that as a compliment, because Stripe's web pages are always beautiful. (My only slight criticism of this one is that the bits which load in progressively as you scroll down have slightly too much of a delay.)
jonathanstrange 9y ago
I hate to sound so critical, it sure looks like an interesting project, but could developers of such applications/websites please stop putting everything on their web page in marketing speech? Why do so many FOSS developers imitate the worst aspects of the proprietary, commercial software world? I looked at the feature descriptions and they are full of meaningless buzzwords like "crowd sourced wisdom". So you've lost a potential user. K.I.S.S.
- johnnydoebk 9y ago
  >> marketing speech >> FOSS developers I don't think it has something to do with FOSS but rather with blockchain developers. Most projects have nice landing pages but very vague messages.
  - vertex-four 9y ago
    > Most projects have nice landing pages but very vague messages. It's to cover up the fact that most of them don't actually do anything very new, interesting, or in some cases (esp around Ethereum) even enforceable.
  - VMG 9y ago
    Agreed. While you're not paying for using the product by buying a software license, you're often required to buy tokens (get it?) in order to use the product. The developers benefit from the increase in token price, because they often own a lot of those tokens. Not that this is necessarily unethical, but it's good to know the incentives behind this.
    - woodrowbarlow 9y ago
      wouldn't that be considered illegal market manipulation if they were somehow doing the same thing with US currency?
- dualogy 9y ago
  > Why do so many FOSS developers imitate the worst aspects of the proprietary, commercial software world? Just bubble things. Plus the youthful enthusiasm, I remember emulating and cultivating the hype speak from the late 90s / early 00s as a teen. It'll fade by the time the next gen are rushing in. > FOSS developers > proprietary, commercial software world Do these terms even mean much anymore? "Proprietary" means "our SaaS codebase isn't open-sourced but rest assured it's 80% FOSS on the inside anyway". And "FOSS developers" means "let's put some select libs/snippets of our SaaS on Github, it's zero risk/cost plus potential upside in terms of mindshare/image (and of course potentially genuinely useful to some out there, who aren't looking to (or going to manage to) clone us and hey may even contribute fixes or features)". World has moved on =) in an ironic twist it was MS' FOSS moves the last few months that sealed that perspective for me. (The old m.o. had its charms, but this current m.o. undeniably has evolved to appear much more compelling in many ways for most players)
mmjaa 9y ago
This looks great, but the only thing stopping me from integrating something like this into my apps is the fact that there isn't any native (Objective-C) client/library support, so far. Its one thing to have a prototype built with JS. Its another thing entirely to integrate into apps which use native technologies.
unlmtd 9y ago
> and all of the electricity required to generate it in order to verify the transactions of the tiny quantity of people currently using bitcoin is obscene I have the same thought when I see lawns and trucks, or all the roofs that aren't collecting their rainwater. Homo petroleum petroleum.
woodandsteel 9y ago
People have been using daps for a while now. Could someone explain what this allows you to do that you couldn't do before?

232 points by state 9y ago

k0mplex 9y ago

But what's it for?

coolspot 9y ago
web3
- beaner 9y ago
  Could they call it anything less self-explanatory?
  - robomc 9y ago
    Well, the other option is to explain how it's like existing methods of delivering online functionality, but decentralised - a thing that nobody really values - plus also incredibly slow, fairly complex, and you have to pay for everything that happens, and also the entire ecosystem is centred around a volatile speculation-rife currency and an approach to financial transactions which has been full of real and significant security problems - including the theft of millions of dollars from the flagship implementation right under the noses of many of the core devs, despite paying corrupt levels of money to other core boosters of the platform for completely hopeless security reviews...
    - cookiecaper 9y ago
      Totally with you here. The blockchain is an awesome experiment and prototype of what a good decentralized, verifiable system could look like, but it has several significant flaws, some of which are obvious even in the limited context of a worldwide ledger (bitcoin). In particular, throwing away 47 zetaflops/s of computing power (the current compute power of the bitcoin network [0]) and all of the electricity required to generate it in order to verify the transactions of the tiny quantity of people currently using bitcoin is obscene, and the mechanism that encourages this should be recognized as the unscalable disaster that it is. Basing "Web 3.0" on such mechanisms is, frankly, a ridiculous proposition. And all of this "decentralization" is thrown out the window by virtually everyone, because to store a full copy of the blockchain on your local disk, you need -- let's see -- $ du -sh /mnt/apps_syn/dot_bitcoin/ 118G /mnt/apps_syn/dot_bitcoin/ 120 gigabytes of space. So you end up just trusting Coinbase or whoever you have your wallet from anyway, no different than trusting your bank. If Coinbase had an Ethereum moment, they could fork the chain that all of their wallets use, and with their MtGox-like domination of the market, any resistance to their fork would seriously damage Bitcoin overall. I imagine most miners would go along with it because they don't want their btc to drop to 0. Consider also that there is virtually no transparency into the actual miner operations. The biggest miners are behind "pools" -- relays -- and though the idea is that pools are made up of tens of thousands of independently-controlled computers, I suspect that if we could see through to which machines were actually doing most of the work, bitcoin would suddenly seem a lot less "decentralized". This is not to mention that miners behind pools are totally at the pool's mercy, or that 5 pools hold over 50% of the network's hashrate, and that these pool operators have been in one room together to decide on blockchain policy (re blocksize, which miners are incentivized to oppose, since smaller blocksize == higher transaction fees). That is little different than big banks meeting under the auspices of the Federal Reserve to control monetary policy. It's very sad that people saw bitcoin and thought it was a good idea to expand its flawed model out, instead of accepting it for the forward-thinking prototype it was and thinking about how to improve it before jumping all in. [0] per https://bitcoinwatch.com https://bitcoinwatch.com
      - mbrock 9y ago
        I work full time on Ethereum development, and I don't have any kind of maximalistic opinions about decentralization, the evils of banks, or whatever. It's just a very interesting technology with a really great momentum. But everything is flawed under the sun. There is no perfect technology that can completely decentralize authority with no resource demands. Or maybe Satoshi's reincarnation will come and deliver a new mind-blowing concept that makes blockchains completely deprecated. That would be pretty cool. But until then, you know. By the way, Ethereum's roadmap includes switching away from proof of work towards proof of stake, which doesn't waste electricity. This model has been used successfully, for example by Bitshares. It also includes a light client protocol so mobile nodes don't need much disk space or processing power. [As always, Hacker News is full of critics...]
        cookiecaper 9y ago
        This isn't a nitpick about how the blockchain isn't perfect. IPv4 is imperfect, HTTP is imperfect, etc. The blockchain is ill-conceived and impractical. At this point, I only check in on the bitcoin community casually, so I'm not familiar with proof of stake, but I'm glad to hear work is underway to resolve that glaring issue in Ethereum. I'll definitely read up on it. Thanks for the pointer. >[As always, Hacker News is full of critics...] Indeed. We come here to discuss, which will involve some criticism. Working on Ethereum is not really an indictment, so don't worry. :)
        mbrock 9y ago
        That's what I mean, you're not familiar with what's happening, yet you comfortably dismiss the whole idea of blockchain as ill-conceived and impractical. So both of your major criticisms are being actively addressed by very smart people who plan to have them solved in the near to medium term future. Does that in any way change your view of blockchain? Maybe it could possibly work? Or, no, it's just a hopeless dumb idea that will surely crash?
        cookiecaper 9y ago
carlbennetts 9y ago
Status is decentralized messaging platform to access the Ethereum Network (Web 3.0). Essentially we're building a network that's completely operated by it's own users, and runs entirely on peer-to-peer technologies. Users can send encrypted messages, payments, and can interact and chat with decentralized applications. What's exciting about Ethereum is it removes the need not only for centralized servers, but also for intermediaries that were traditionally required in order to partake in trade or legal agreements. A good place to start if you'd like to learn more: http://www.ethdocs.org/en/latest/introduction/what-is-ethereum.html http://www.ethdocs.org/en/latest/introduction/what-is-ethere...

coolspot 9y ago

If Apple would allow this in AppStore, it would be uuuge.

neilalexander 9y ago
Near enough this exact idea is in the App Store in the form of another app called "Token".

fiatjaf 9y ago

Man, this is a great idea. EDIT: Hey, you can actually download it right now if you join the beta.

carlbennetts 9y ago
Thanks so much for trying it out! We're also completely open source so contributors are most welcome (https://wiki.status.im/contributing/development/introduction/ https://wiki.status.im/contributing/development/introduction...) - also feel free to come say Hi on our Slack (http://slack.status.im/ http://slack.status.im/), we're friendly people :)

LeoPanthera 9y ago

Remarkably similar to Token from Coinbase, which launched just yesterday: https://www.tokenbrowser.com https://www.tokenbrowser.com (and which is available in the iOS app store)

carlbennetts 9y ago
Coinbase are nice people, and I hope Token is a success. If you'd like to compare the two products please do check out the tech stack - Status is completely decentralized, so doesn't rely on any centralised servers :)
- px43 9y ago
  Is status.im using whisper for messaging? Is there end to end crypto between users?
j_s 9y ago
Interesting! I wonder how Apple will get their 30%?
- woofyman 9y ago
  >Interesting! I wonder how Apple will get their 30%? The 30% is for paid apps and in app purchases of app content. If you use the Amazon app, for example. They don't take a cut.
  - j_s 9y ago
    I'm not sure exactly how Apple draws the line (this looks like a store for digital stuff). If this approach gets popular (cryptocurrency to skip the 30% cut) I'm sure they'll pay more attention. https://www.amazon.com/forum/amazon%20appstore%20deals/ref=cm_cd_pg_next/134-7847803-9012215?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx9N1C8PP4X4PK&cdPage=2&cdThread=Tx3TD08VZK5MVRI https://www.amazon.com/forum/amazon%20appstore%20deals/ref=c... I'm not on board with the 30% commission explanation. On the Amazon ios app (normal retail app, not video only), I can buy everything but videos. Wouldn't they be hesitant to share 30% of the other billion dollars of revenue they do via ios? https://www.quora.com/How-do-online-retailers-with-iOS-apps-selling-physical-products-get-around-the-30-in-app-commission-fee?share https://www.quora.com/How-do-online-retailers-with-iOS-apps-... Apple will only charge you the 30% of products sold through IAP. The caveat here is that if you sell digital goods through the app you don't any option other than using Apple's IAP. also, in another answer: It also doesn't include all digital goods. Only those digital goods whose services would be consumed within the app are accounted for the 30% free by Apple.

marclave 9y ago

Great idea, and the landing page is incredibly beautiful. Well done.

adamrezich 9y ago

I haven't followed Ethereum since the whole DAO debacle. I was very excited about the technology but the way the whole hard fork/Ethereum Classic thing was handled really turned me off. Has progress been made on formally verifying contracts or anything like that? And why aren't more people bothered by the whole hard fork thing?

LeoPanthera 9y ago
I think the current Bitcoin situation is really showing that rapid, organized hard forks when problems occur is an extremely good thing. Bitcoin is currently frozen in time, since there are two major competing clients, and neither dare make any incompatible changes for fear of creating a fork, and right now neither has a majority. A decentralized cryptocurrency is a lovely ideal, but in the dirty real world, Ethereum and its ilk will win out.
- adamrezich 9y ago
  I understand and my knowledge of cryptocurrencies is very limited, but from what I understood, there was no "bug" in Ethereum itself; there was a loophole in the DAO contract script that someone exploited. To my uneducated-about-cryptocurrencies mind, hard-forking based on that sets a terrible precedent, and shows that users of the currency are willing to have that happen again if a similar situation arises, giving me absolutely zero trust in the system.
  - LeoPanthera 9y ago
    I at least partially agree with you, and it's definitely a grey area. If Ethereum hadn't been so young at the time, the fork may not have happened.
    - mook 9y ago
      I haven't kept track of this very much, and am curious: why might the fork not have happened if Ethereum was older? Assuming the undesirable transaction happened relatively close the the point of forking, only a small number of descendent transactions would need to be reverted, right?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

ptrinh 9y ago

Nice one from Singapore ;-)

gorkemyurt 9y ago

Is the intention here to run mini react-native apps (Dapps?) within a bigger app (status app itself)?

floflo79 9y ago

So awesome to see these dapps get to the next level!

Jabanga 9y ago

Does Status use SPV?

ganwar 9y ago

You can find a comprehensive list of dapps here: http://dapps.ethercasts.com http://dapps.ethercasts.com Developer activity in Ethereum is increasing at a very fast pace. This is only supposed to accelerate after the upcoming metropolis upgrade hard fork.

Ethcoin 9y ago

Whenever there is an article on crypto currencies, I see a subset of accounts come out of the woodwork to praise them. Whether you've invested in Ethereum should be mentioned.

kkapelon 9y ago

Worst name ever. It will be very hard for people to search about this (not to mention the SEO problems)

bschwindHN 9y ago

This app uses re-natal, a wrapper of React Native for ClojureScript. It also uses a ClojureScript framework called "re-frame" for data flow and "reagent" for wrapping React. It's a pleasure to work with (most of the time, there are hiccups here and there) and you can develop for iOS and Android simultaneously. I highly recommend checking it out. https://github.com/drapanjanas/re-natal https://github.com/drapanjanas/re-natal https://github.com/status-im/status-react/ https://github.com/status-im/status-react/

mej10 9y ago
Seconded! re-frame/reagent/re-natal are great. Really fun to use.

ksahin 9y ago

Amazing project, and great landing page btw. It seems the Ethereum ecosystem is becomming more and more mature, that's great !

bshimmin 9y ago
I actually thought this was a Stripe product when I first saw the landing page - and I mean that as a compliment, because Stripe's web pages are always beautiful. (My only slight criticism of this one is that the bits which load in progressively as you scroll down have slightly too much of a delay.)

jonathanstrange 9y ago

I hate to sound so critical, it sure looks like an interesting project, but could developers of such applications/websites please stop putting everything on their web page in marketing speech? Why do so many FOSS developers imitate the worst aspects of the proprietary, commercial software world? I looked at the feature descriptions and they are full of meaningless buzzwords like "crowd sourced wisdom". So you've lost a potential user. K.I.S.S.

johnnydoebk 9y ago
>> marketing speech >> FOSS developers I don't think it has something to do with FOSS but rather with blockchain developers. Most projects have nice landing pages but very vague messages.
- vertex-four 9y ago
  > Most projects have nice landing pages but very vague messages. It's to cover up the fact that most of them don't actually do anything very new, interesting, or in some cases (esp around Ethereum) even enforceable.
- VMG 9y ago
  Agreed. While you're not paying for using the product by buying a software license, you're often required to buy tokens (get it?) in order to use the product. The developers benefit from the increase in token price, because they often own a lot of those tokens. Not that this is necessarily unethical, but it's good to know the incentives behind this.
  - woodrowbarlow 9y ago
    wouldn't that be considered illegal market manipulation if they were somehow doing the same thing with US currency?
dualogy 9y ago
> Why do so many FOSS developers imitate the worst aspects of the proprietary, commercial software world? Just bubble things. Plus the youthful enthusiasm, I remember emulating and cultivating the hype speak from the late 90s / early 00s as a teen. It'll fade by the time the next gen are rushing in. > FOSS developers > proprietary, commercial software world Do these terms even mean much anymore? "Proprietary" means "our SaaS codebase isn't open-sourced but rest assured it's 80% FOSS on the inside anyway". And "FOSS developers" means "let's put some select libs/snippets of our SaaS on Github, it's zero risk/cost plus potential upside in terms of mindshare/image (and of course potentially genuinely useful to some out there, who aren't looking to (or going to manage to) clone us and hey may even contribute fixes or features)". World has moved on =) in an ironic twist it was MS' FOSS moves the last few months that sealed that perspective for me. (The old m.o. had its charms, but this current m.o. undeniably has evolved to appear much more compelling in many ways for most players)

mmjaa 9y ago

This looks great, but the only thing stopping me from integrating something like this into my apps is the fact that there isn't any native (Objective-C) client/library support, so far. Its one thing to have a prototype built with JS. Its another thing entirely to integrate into apps which use native technologies.

unlmtd 9y ago

> and all of the electricity required to generate it in order to verify the transactions of the tiny quantity of people currently using bitcoin is obscene I have the same thought when I see lawns and trucks, or all the roofs that aren't collecting their rainwater. Homo petroleum petroleum.

woodandsteel 9y ago

People have been using daps for a while now. Could someone explain what this allows you to do that you couldn't do before?