4 ms·

Yes I understand how ipfs works. But I mean, now we don't have the ability to print an URL that is not dependent on a domain name ipfs or any other. That's why

by kuon 8y ago

Yes I understand how ipfs works. But I mean, now we don't have the ability to print an URL that is not dependent on a domain name ipfs or any other. That's why DNS would require an alternative for true persistent and decentralized identifiers that are human readable.

wolfgang42 8y ago
Well, of course you can't have a URL without a domain name; part of the spec for URLs is that they have a host part! But, IPFS does not depend on the domain name system to keep your data accessible. You can install IPFS Companion to remove the dependency on the DNS system and ipfs.io gateway, replacing it with your own local gateway (so even if the IPFS Foundation goes away they will still work for anyone who has this set up). Or, you can look at the URL to find the hash and perform the lookup manually. There are also some discussions about making a new URI scheme, though I don't believe they've settled on anything yet. As I've said in my other comment, I don't think that decentralized and human-readable are mutually compatible; if there is no central authority then how can it be decided when two people want the same name? If by first-come-first-serve, what prevents someone from squatting on all the good names? Namecoin for example solves this by requiring periodic renewal, but then you have the same problem that DNS has of link rot as names expire.
- kuon 8y ago
  Yeah, having an IPFS like system handled at the browser level (in the address bar) would solve the name resolving bit without DNS. We could imagine something like this, the full URL is: QmaG4FuMqEBnQNn3C8XJ5bpW8kLs7zq2ZXgHptJHbKDDVx/github/example.jpg but could be written like so Qx/github/example.jpg And if there are duplicates, all duplicates are displayed in a list, with metadata (like creator, ssl info to help verify the creator...) and you select the one you want.

by kuon 8y ago

wolfgang42 8y ago

Well, of course you can't have a URL without a domain name; part of the spec for URLs is that they have a host part! But, IPFS does not depend on the domain name system to keep your data accessible. You can install IPFS Companion to remove the dependency on the DNS system and ipfs.io gateway, replacing it with your own local gateway (so even if the IPFS Foundation goes away they will still work for anyone who has this set up). Or, you can look at the URL to find the hash and perform the lookup manually. There are also some discussions about making a new URI scheme, though I don't believe they've settled on anything yet. As I've said in my other comment, I don't think that decentralized and human-readable are mutually compatible; if there is no central authority then how can it be decided when two people want the same name? If by first-come-first-serve, what prevents someone from squatting on all the good names? Namecoin for example solves this by requiring periodic renewal, but then you have the same problem that DNS has of link rot as names expire.

kuon 8y ago
Yeah, having an IPFS like system handled at the browser level (in the address bar) would solve the name resolving bit without DNS. We could imagine something like this, the full URL is: QmaG4FuMqEBnQNn3C8XJ5bpW8kLs7zq2ZXgHptJHbKDDVx/github/example.jpg but could be written like so Qx/github/example.jpg And if there are duplicates, all duplicates are displayed in a list, with metadata (like creator, ssl info to help verify the creator...) and you select the one you want.