18 ms·

Radicle: A peer-to-peer alternative to GitHub

864 points by dweberz 6y ago

dijit 6y ago
Not to be confused with Radicale; an Open-Source CalDAV and CardDAV Server https://radicale.org/3.0.html https://radicale.org/3.0.html
- cloudhead 6y ago
  The shameless plug we all needed
  - kiwidrew 6y ago
    I read the title of this link and thought "Hmm, Radicale... not quite sure how a CalDAV server can be a Github alternative".
  - enedil 6y ago
    Shameless plugs are when you talk about your product specifically, while this just mentioned some product of this name.
anonymousDan 6y ago
Looks cool. Has anyone actually used it?
- viraptor 6y ago
  Just kicking the tires. The beta was released just a couple of days ago. The very basic features seem to work just fine, and the rest is an obvious WIP. The team behind it seems super responsive and engaged.
varbhat 6y ago
I don't understand how using Radicle will free my code as they say in the site. So,how is using Radicle better than: 1. main repo on https://github.com https://github.com 2. mirror repo on https://repo.or.cz https://repo.or.cz 3. mirror repo on https://codeberg.org https://codeberg.org 4. local backup on my device and hard-disk. peer-to-peer is beautiful concept but note that git is already distributed VCS. you can have many remotes and mirrors. Just that p2p is not necessary here in git and using Radicle doesn't free my Code.
- half-kh-hacker 6y ago
  If your main repo lives on GitHub, your (primary) issue tracking is tied to GitHub.
  - varbhat 6y ago
    Actually, it's not fault of git. Workflow of git takes place through email and patches. But,github wanted to make this process easier for the people,hence they included issues,fork and PR model. It was easily done with intuitive interface without necessity of email for workflow, but if you have asked me, i would have issues,wiki,etc. integrated within repo just like Fossil VCS. p2p is cool but not solution to this . gitea/gitlab/etc. already provide importing of issues with repos and if not,they must provide that feature.
    - phoe-krk 6y ago
      > Actually, it's not fault of git. Workflow of git takes place through email and patches. This invokes the "it's not a bug, it's a feature" mechanism. E.g. Fossil has no problem integrating issues, merge requests, and wiki pages inside its repositories.
      - varbhat 6y ago
        Actually, Gitlab and Gitea allows mirror of Github repos with Issues/wiki/PR etc. So, having issues in Github is not at all problem. I just gave you example of Fossil VCS which has issues,PR,etc. baked into VCS itself. Actually,what Radicle is doing is to extend git with p2p and not inventing new VCS with issues,etc. baked in. What i am telling is that p2p doesn't solve this unclear problem and p2p isn't much beneficial to git. And will there be enough peers to guarantee availability of repo ?
        viraptor 6y ago
        > Actually, Gitlab and Gitea allows mirror of Github repos with Issues/wiki/PR etc. But GitHub does not mirror the issues/PRs from anyone, so it's a very one-sided connection.
meibo 6y ago
Why do I have to give them my email to even download the client? Is this a product or not? Sure sounds nice though, hope it turns out. Hope they are considering a web frontend for the network as well.
- dweberz 6y ago
  you don't need to give your email to download the client no.
  - rudolfs 6y ago
    https://radicle.xyz/downloads.html https://radicle.xyz/downloads.html
    - viraptor 6y ago
      Not sure why they started the what practice, but you can see the download link in the website repo: https://github.com/radicle-dev/radicle.xyz/pull/145/files#diff-357908b71776a63acee9ad4cd874253509c83df8f9799e32256432b4b7f61395R17 https://github.com/radicle-dev/radicle.xyz/pull/145/files#di... Specifically: mac https://releases.radicle.xyz/radicle-upstream-0.1.4.dmg https://releases.radicle.xyz/radicle-upstream-0.1.4.dmg Linux https://releases.radicle.xyz/radicle-upstream-0.1.4.AppImage https://releases.radicle.xyz/radicle-upstream-0.1.4.AppImage Release bucket listing https://releases.radicle.xyz/ https://releases.radicle.xyz/
adsweedler 6y ago
"Work securely offline" Is... is that a problem with GitHub that stops you from doing that?
- YetAnotherNick 6y ago
  You need internet for pull and push. I think(hoping) that they meant within a LAN it could work without internet.
  - rsa25519 6y ago
    (I'm not shooting the messenger here) If so, that would mean pushing/pulling within the LAN only... which Git supports already
    - cloudhead 6y ago
      You can't push within LAN and then have that automatically available when online to the wider network, unless you have some form of continuous replication to some public-facing host. This is what Radicle does for you.
    - toyg 6y ago
      If Github is unreachable, you don’t have a bugtracker, wiki etc. - you are working “blind”.
  - cloudhead 6y ago
    No, the full feature-set is available offline. You can browse your repos and any other repo you replicated, and push/pull. What offline means is simply that your changes won't immediately be replicated to peers. But the full app experience (Read and write) works offline.
- dutchmartin 6y ago
  Well, reading issues is something you cannot when you are offline from github. Unless you downloaded them beforehand of course.
- 6y ago
fireattack 6y ago
This doesn't look like "alternative to GitHub" to me; you don't need to download any client to use GitHub and having a nice web interface is one of the most defining feature of GitHub.
- thruflo22 6y ago
  GitHub is a “social coding” platform that provides collaboration features (access control, issues, etc) on top of Git. This is a social coding tool that provides collaboration features on top of Git. It provides a desktop app because it’s peer to peer. That’s an advantage over a web UI for developers looking to avoid a dependency on a centralised third party. You are free to continue to play in walled gardens but this is very much an alternative to that.
  - fireattack 6y ago
    Well the disadvantage is it doesn't even have a Windows client.
    - viraptor 6y ago
      This is a first announced beta release. It doesn't have a few planned features. I'm sure windows build will happen at some point too.
    - tpoacher 6y ago
      Surely that's an advantage. :p
      - fireattack 6y ago
        I knew you're joking, but gatekeeping isn't what got GitHub this far.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hanklazard 6y ago
Would you consider linking a white paper off the homepage? (If there is one, I'm not finding it). I like the sound of this project but I really would like to understand it more fully.
- lftherios 6y ago
  docs here https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/what-is-radicle.html https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/what-is-radicle.html
nnn1234 6y ago
like other folks who have said this before, the question is who is this for and what is it that github doesnt provide but radicle does? I can have git installed on my device, work locally and instead of pointing to github, have a scuttlebutt like updates for PRs Question is who wants this? and what does this do to open source code?
- geranim0 6y ago
  youtube-dl?
a-dub 6y ago
i think this is technically interesting, but i'm curious in practice what it gives project maintainers over hosting their own gitlab instance or similar...
- cloudhead 6y ago
  Good question. I know of a few projects hosting their own GitLab instance, the problem is that this requires me to create a new account/identity for each of these instances. This is a far cry from what GitHub brought, which was a single "place" and social network where you could browse and contribute to all projects with the same account. Radicle attempts to take back control (just like running your own instance), but without giving up network effects.
- viraptor 6y ago
  I've got a number of tiny projects. Realistically if they're not hosted on GitHub, they won't get contributions. "Setup another login on my gitlab instance" would close to ensure nobody collaborates on it. This allows me to both disconnect them from a centralised service and remove the "you need a separate identity" step.
  - pferde 6y ago
    Oh come on. It's not like making an account is overly difficult or demanding. You are not required to send two forms of ID or a blood sample by mail. Anyone who really wants to contribute to the project (and scratch their itch) will not have a problem with entering a username, password, and perhaps use a validation link from an e-mail. It might discourage people with just fleeting interest. And as a hypothetical FOSS project maintainer, I know I'd rather have one of the first kind of contributor than ten of the second kind. Especially if the alternative is to be beholden to the likes of Microsoft. Of course, the best solution would be something like ForgeFed, but I can't see that meaningfully taking off (there's no way Github will ever adopt it). I'd love to be wrong, though.
    - viraptor 6y ago
      The step is not difficult. The step exists and that's enough. Search through HN comments and see how many people see creating a new account as annoying. And I understand it - If I have a one line fix but the relevant system requires a new account, I don't bother. If it's a significant fix, but the project requires extra signed document (CLA?), they're getting a description in an issue instead. There's a reason for a recent trend where new services let you jump right in and start using them. Then require amount creation only when you do something significant. And for a small project that potential drive-by fix is valuable. It's not like I get to throw away most people to select the best ones. I get one potential fix a year - either it's a seamless experience or they disappear.
isaacimagine 6y ago
Tried out radicle a while back with a recent project - it's really cool!
casi 6y ago
This looks fun, will give it a go. The inbuilt funding sounds interesting, is that like bounties on issues? Or more like Patreon sponsorships?
- cloudhead 6y ago
  More like the latter. The first funding feature we are launching will allow you to set a monthly budget and have it split amongst a set of users/maintainers of your choosing.
LockAndLol 6y ago
Is there a CLI? I can't download yet another Electron app and waste 90MB on another Chromium instance.
- cloudhead 6y ago
  I feel you. A CLI is on our roadmap, as well as moving to a lighter-weight app container[0] [0]: https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri
ilaksh 6y ago
I wonder if they started on an Ethereum 2.0 L2 implementation. Maybe it can actually be almost the same thing?
- cloudhead 6y ago
  Almost the same thing as what?
  - ilaksh 6y ago
    As L1
    - cloudhead 6y ago
      Yeah, we will eventually move to L2 if it is able to deliver what L1 does at a cheaper cost. Currently this isn’t the case, as only token transfers are possible on L2.
nikitaga 6y ago
What a nice funky design. That front page has a soul, unlike almost everything else I see nowadays.
- viraptor 6y ago
  There's a post about the design here: https://radicle.community/t/the-journey-to-radicles-new-brand-and-website/355 https://radicle.community/t/the-journey-to-radicles-new-bran...
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    The main site page is just awful. It's amateurish, image/animation heavy to no value, almost negligable information. They may have something good but the site's just obscuring it.
    - viraptor 6y ago
      I think it does a good job listing project ideas / features / roadmap and is a pleasant step away from the bland corporate brands. Love the esthetic. You just can't satisfy everyone.
      - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        The front page alone is 9MB. Edit: perhaps more importantly, I have to gain a feeling for the product, to work out whether it's worth the perhaps nontrivial time evaluating it. If I'm presented with this what it indicates to me, rightly or not, is that the product is image-led, the project is perhaps childish if the website is (clips from ghost in the shell?), fails to understand technical load (the website's bloated, what does it say about technical competence of the company) and whatever. I don't care about corporate blandness, I need solid info, directly in front of me, and not having my eyes pulled away by flicker. I could be completely getting the value of this project wrong but first impressions suggest I may well be wasting my time with it.
rarestoma 6y ago
cool! I really love the design!
MartijnBraam 6y ago
This seems so unnecessary, replace the blockchain stuff with email and you have git as it was originally intended. no custom software needed.
- dweberz 6y ago
  I believe you didn't even read the text. Ethereum is used to send money to maintainers. not sure how email does that...
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    To add to that: there are several major stablecoins on Ethereum: USDT, which is backed by BitFinex and has $12 billion in circulation, USDC from Coinbase/Circle with $3 billion in circulation, GUSD, from Gemini, BUSD from Binance with $700M in circulation, and DAI, which is decentralized and has $1 billion in circulation. These are all ERC20 tokens so easy to integrate into Radicle, and offer a way to allow developers to get paid peer-to-peer while completely avoiding the price volatility of typical cryptocurrencies.
- arp242 6y ago
  There are so many issues with email that I'm not even sure where to start, and they've been repeated many times in previous HN threads anyway. Suffice to say that clearly it doesn't work for a lot of people, because otherwise we'd all be using it.
- t0astbread 6y ago
  How can email alone replace GitHub? Email with something like GitHub (like sourcehut) maybe but "no custom software" definitely not.
  - mch82 6y ago
    git-send-email https://git-scm.com/docs/git-send-email https://git-scm.com/docs/git-send-email Git was designed for patches (diffs) to be sent in email. That’s how many people used it before GitHub.
tyrion 6y ago
This seems really cool! I am wondering if it can host private repository as well, or is it just meant to host public repositories?
- xla 6y ago
  For now the focus is on public collaboration on public projects. Features for private/encrypted repos are definitely on the roadmap.
dessant 6y ago
Awesome project, though the perpetuation of open source software needing to be free is regrettable. > Software as it should be. > Free forever Mostly all popular projects need some form of funding, and setting the expectaction of a free lunch forever for new users is not healthy. Btw, do you remember who used the tagline "It's free and always will be"? It was Facebook.
- xla 6y ago
  Important to note that "Free" here doesn't refer to "for free". You rpoint about funding of popular projects was at the heart of radicle from the beginning. We believe that FOSS as backbone of the digital infrastructure needs to be sustainable, which includes the resources/funds to maintain it and keep it free and open. If you wanna find out more about the philosophy we follow, here is the original research and premise: http://oscoin.io/ http://oscoin.io/
- merelydev 6y ago
  I think it is Free as in Freedom.
  - saberd 6y ago
    So free as in open source, why is this called free and not open then?
    - cowsandmilk 6y ago
      Free is a term used by the community for decades, literally in the name of the Free Software Foundation. I guess you could argue that their need to explain what free means indicates it was a bad choice to use, but it is pretty standard now. https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software
  - dessant 6y ago
    That's possible, but they also mention "Completely open source" in the same list, and that would make "Free as in Freedom" redundant.
sdan 6y ago
It's weird to think P2P is becoming all the craze for "privacy" while it's the backbone of the internet: it is p2p. It's just nowadays its more of P2(big cloud servers)2p; which could be a good thing depending on who you ask and your usecases.
- sktrdie 6y ago
  I always thought maintaining servers was silly since BitTorrent already proved we can achieve higher bandwidth throughput using lots of clients communicating together. But p2p is more about the network connectivity than whether the node is an Amazon server or a mobile phone. The normal Web for instance does not build on this network nodes capabilities. We need more apps that build these kind of collaborative and self-sustainable networks
  - skohan 6y ago
    I mean it works in the use-case where you have a single file version everyone is hosting, but it gets a lot more complicated when you’re talking about dynamic content doesn’t it? For instance how would you synchronize all the content on a hacker news thread between all the clients?
ryanar 6y ago
I spent a lot of time watching the GIFs on repeat rather than reading the text on the web page. It is quirky, I like the style, but it is a distraction from the message.
dsign 6y ago
We kind of need this yesterday... what's the point of having a decentralized git if the issues are centralized at Github? (which, not to make too fine a point of it, is owned by Microsoft). Even if you host your own Gitlab, there is always that day when the hard drive of the server fails and the ops have to spend a weekend restoring backups while changing hosting company because who crashes the hard-drive of an expensive VPS anyway... I hope Radicle gets a lot of funding and tons of adoption.
- fn1 6y ago
  Can't you just serialize all issues into the repository and then write scripts/hooks to sync them in/out of textfiles in the repo?
  - dm3 6y ago
    I know of an attempt to implement an approach to track issues and code in a decentralized manner with SIT[0]. Unfortunatlely the project seems to be dead. [0] https://github.com/sit-fyi https://github.com/sit-fyi
  - m4rtink 6y ago
    Pagure does something like that: https://pagure.io/pagure https://pagure.io/pagure All the issues, wiki, PR review are stored in Git as well. You still need a Pagure instance (that you can self host if you want) to provide the web ui, but you can easily just clone the repo and put it to a different instance, keeping all your metadata.
  - masklinn 6y ago
    This was attempted multiple times in the past. None succeeded, in large parts because at a fundamental level issues are a synchronisation point, making issues part of the repository adds overhead and complexity but doesn't really give you anything, and furthermore it increases complexity for reporters.
  - hamaluik 6y ago
    I’ve used git-bug[1] successfully in the past for something similar but more ergonomic. 1: https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug
blargmaster42_8 6y ago
Drop the crypto scam angle pleas
jakry 6y ago
Is this based on Matrix?
- cloudhead 6y ago
  It isn’t, no. It’s based on a protocol we’ve developed called Radicle Link, which provides a gossip layer on top of git.
Aeolun 6y ago
How and why is literally everything peer to peer in the tech community also somehow connected to ethereum?
- cloudhead 6y ago
  Because you want a way to move money around eventually. Eg. How do you do GitHub sponsors p2p?
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    Is there anything wrong with using actual money to do this?
- hobofan 6y ago
  Because the cryptocurrency hype funds/funded most of those projects and/or the prospect of adding a cryptocurrency to the projects causes VCs to fund those projects. In this particular case Radicle came out of OScoin (or is the new incarnation of it?) and was funded by BlueYard.
  - amself 6y ago
    Right. I was surprised to see they chose to implement social coding after integrating with Ethereum, but it makes sense considering all the hype.
    - lftherios 6y ago
      we are actually working on both problems in parallel. it's just that the skillset required and complexity is very different.
- ffpip 6y ago
  Peer to peer AI Machine learning with blockchain on AWS cloud.
- simias 6y ago
  My first reaction when I read "peer-to-peer" in the title was "cool" followed immediately with "oh it's going to push some cryptocurrency crap, isn't it?" But honestly after reading the page it look fine to me. Oddly enough they seem to use cryptocurrencies as... currency. They don't bullshit you by saying that you're going to store your code on the blockchain. Besides, while I long ago became tired of the cryptocurrency crowd reinventing squared wheels every other month, the problem of rewarding open source developers is still very much an open issue, so I'm willing to give it a chance, even if I'm not holding my breath. This seems like a cool project frankly, at least on paper, I don't think it's fair to discard it just because it bundles some optional Ethereum support. Actually after downloading the upstream client my only complaint so far is that it's yet an other bloated Electron app, but such is life in 2020...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jeanlucas 6y ago
If it's free forever I'll give four years and check it.up again
- t0astbread 6y ago
  It's P2P, so "free forever" isn't unrealistic.
  - jillesvangurp 6y ago
    Somebody still needs to agree to hosting your data. Incentivizing peers to host your encrypted data is not a solved problem. IPFS is trying to bootstrap some cryptocurrency to fix that but they seems to be taking their sweet time with that. So, ultimately, you always end up with somebody providing the convenience of not throwing your data away for a fee. Github and Gitlab seem to be the popular options for that. Gitlab is actually open source and you can self host it if you want and many do. But the reason they have a nice valuation is that they have lots of customers that prefer them to do it. Given that it's MIT Licensed, you can even do that and offer it as a service probably (Amazon, there's a nice idea for you :-) ).
    - diggan 6y ago
      > IPFS is trying to bootstrap some cryptocurrency to fix that but they seems to be taking their sweet time with that AFAIK, Filecoin is live now, and seems you can use it now for getting peers to host your IPFS data. But, I'm also unsure that incentivizing peers with actual money is the best and/or only solution. BitTorrent works today for free, many peers are seeding content just to be seeders. DC++ worked yesterday, where people shared data just to share data. While probably offering money for storing data will get more people onboard to store others data, it doesn't seem to be the only solution we have at hand to get free sharing of data.
nrvn 6y ago
I would like to see a comparison with Sourcehut.
htrap 6y ago
We are building https://gitopia.org https://gitopia.org - Permanent Data Storage provided by Arweave - Works from within git with the help of git-remote-helper `npm install -g git-remote-gitopia` so no need to learn new tooling - Built-in incentivization to token holders who also take part in the governance of Gitopia - Token holders share revenue made by the platform - You can mirror your GitHub repositories now using the Github Mirror Action. Follow step by step from here -https://thetechtrap.com/posts/push-your-code-to-gitopia/ https://thetechtrap.com/posts/push-your-code-to-gitopia/ - We are now working on the governance and collaboration workflows that will enable transparency in open source development and provide the stakeholders to have a say in the direction of the project. You can reach out to us on https://twitter.com/gitopiaOrg https://twitter.com/gitopiaOrg https://discord.gg/mVpQVW3vKE https://discord.gg/mVpQVW3vKE
- htrap 6y ago
  Link to git-remote-gitopia source hosted on Gitopia: https://gitopia.org/#/z_TqsbmVJOKzpuQH4YrYXv_Q0DrkwDwc0UqapRrE0Do/git-remote-gitopia https://gitopia.org/#/z_TqsbmVJOKzpuQH4YrYXv_Q0DrkwDwc0UqapR...
- SamuelAdams 6y ago
  Hey FYI your landing page gave me this error, Firefox ESR 78.5.0. Right now it's a big blank screen with no content. {…} code: "EACCES" errno: 13 message: "Error: EACCES: Permission denied." path: undefined stack: "n@https://gitopia.org/main.js:277:55609\non/<@https://gitopia.org/main.js:277:136762\n" https://gitopia.org/main.js:277:55609\non/<@https://gitopia.... syscall: "" <prototype>: Object { constructor: n(t, n, r), toString: toString(), toJSON: toJSON() , … } main.js:339:94885 c https://gitopia.org/main.js:339 https://gitopia.org/main.js:339 configure https://gitopia.org/main.js:277 https://gitopia.org/main.js:277 store https://gitopia.org/main.js:277 https://gitopia.org/main.js:277 on https://gitopia.org/main.js:277 https://gitopia.org/main.js:277
  - htrap 6y ago
    Thanks for flagging this. We'll look into it. Meanwhile you can try from a different browser.
jwmoz 6y ago
That design is amazing.
rational_indian 6y ago
Isn't git peer-to-peer already? Why would anyone need this?
- cloudhead 6y ago
  Have you used GitHub? It adds a bunch of functionality on top of git.
- Taek 6y ago
  GitHub's primary value add to the world isn't that it's a web interface to git. It's also a social network, an issue tracker, a workflow management system, a code review tool, a wiki-builder, a frontend for your CI, and plenty more. If github disappears tomorrow, all the code will be safe and decentralized already, yes, but most of the workflow of the software world would be significantly stunted for a good while, because everyone would need to migrate to something else (like GitLab) and then take the time to rebuild all of the data and flow that is on Github but isn't captured within the actual git repository.
  - xla 6y ago
    This comment is spot on, people who jump to the conversation with the argument that Git is already decentralised don't understand where the most value is captured when it comes to collaboration. It's the social artifact, issues, PRs, etc. And the cost of migrating the community of a project/organisation and their social artifacts is a massive cost, carrying the risk of splitting the community and or stifling any other progress to stay relevant.
simias 6y ago
I've installed the "upstream" client but I must say that I'm a bit confused. I imported a couple of git repositories that ended up on http://seedling.radicle.xyz/ http://seedling.radicle.xyz/, so I thought I did it right, but then if I try to add projects from that very page it keeps searching and never finds anything (they're stuck in "keep looking" mode). Also I don't see how you can create issues. Is it not implemented yet? It's an interesting project but it feels like very early alpha-grade to me. The client gives very little feedback on what's happening and what you can do.
- xla 6y ago
  This is really helpful feedback. Especially the part about not getting enough feedback during operations. And yes social features like issues and PRs have not been the focus in this release, as we focused on replication. If you are looking for more help you can join the community matrix and we take it from there: https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/using-radicle/join-the-community https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/using-radicle/join-the-communi...
  - simias 6y ago
    Thanks for the feedback on my feedback. My recommendation would be to make a very simple tutorial (maybe even a video) walking the user through checkouting a remote project, publishing their own and start hacking while explaining the core concepts. The docs are pretty good from what I see, but when you're just starting and you don't know what you're looking for it's a bit overwhelming I thought.
- erk__ 6y ago
  It seems that it is sadly only built for AppImage and MacOS neither of work on any of my current machines. Though I guess it just means that I have to figure out how to build it myself.
fastglass 6y ago
it would be super interesting to know how private would work
- lucb1e 6y ago
  It's not 1989 anymore, we have proper cryptosystems now. I don't have a worked example but elsewhere in the thread someone, it sounded like a dev, mentioned it's being worked on. You can encrypt for certain public keys and then only those people can decrypt the contents.
- cloudhead 6y ago
  Privacy by necessity will use end-to-end encryption, as artifacts will end up being propagated on the network. This isn't however so easy for long-lived artifacts (eg. what happens if your key is compromised sometime in the future), and we will need things such as forward secrecy.
  - fastglass 6y ago
    forgive the abbreviation, I was referring private repositories
18af219e 6y ago
Interesting idea, but 'peer-to-peer'? Is water wet?
flas9sd 6y ago
at the end of the LPC2019 talk "Reflections on kernel development process, quality and testing" by Dmitry Vyukov there's a slide with some Radicle examples. The following slide he links to a post by Konstantin Ryabitsev "Patches carved into developer sigchains" that shows Securescuttlebut on IPFS as an alternative to Email as decentralized system (search for git-ssb).
withPurpose9973 6y ago
No thanks. Setting up git repos on a local machine is easy enough. Sorry/not sorry web-heads, but distributed ephemeral everything on a magical network no one can intuit is going backwards. Importing yet another pie in the sky idea is a non-starter. It’s humans doing human wanky nonsense. Not much of a revolution at this point.
LeicaLatte 6y ago
Very cool!
gitweb 6y ago
Look into how the Linux Kernel and other projects do development. I think a larger issue is why do we need a platform like GitHub when SCM can be done through email?
fungos 6y ago
I'm impressed and I see potential on this one. I tried different ones over time but most fail at on-boarding. This was seamless and really easy. In about 2 minutes I successfully shared my project and followed known projects. This means this mvp works and it let me craving for more, I want to use this! I want issues and PR support to prove this can effectively work as a github replacement to me. Now, the downside of this mvp is that there is no project discovery in the client itself. We need to go search for projects in a browser, in this page http://seedling.radicle.xyz/ http://seedling.radicle.xyz/ which is a bit confusing. Considering the client itself is electron, it could at least, open this page for us somewhere. Or, we could at least have a less "noisy" seedling page focused on search and I would not even know it wasn't part of the client itself. Overall, awesome project. I really hope it will grow and add the missing essential features. If I could vote, with priority these would be: - project discovery integrated in the client - issues support - pr support - multiple identities Anyway, great job!
- geoah 6y ago
  hm, that is interesting, the fact that projects are public and advertised by default was not clear to me while going through the onboarding.
  - xla 6y ago
    Thanks for flagging that, definitely something we are looking to improve in making it clear but also in how much control the user has over that.
  - erichdongubler 6y ago
    For reference: https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/understanding-radicle/faq/#can-i-create-private-repositories-on-radicle https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/understanding-radicle/faq/#can...
- cloudhead 6y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! The priorities you mention are very close to our own, and we have already started working on some of them. We will definitely be integrating discovery more closely into the app in the long run.
NoelJacob 6y ago
Gooyz, Windows?
snvzz 6y ago
Trying to read the website drove me away. There's a time and a place for this sort of web design. I feel strongly that presenting some software to technical minded people is not.
NickRRau 6y ago
Is it possible to self host this and isolate it on your own p2p network? Would be really cool to handle the decentralized part on my own computers without needing to hook into the global p2p. Gonna keep an eye on it.
- xla 6y ago
  That's absolutely possible. Everyone is empowered and encouraged to run their own seed nodes. Which would allow you to have an isolated network. Check the docs to find out how to run your own: https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/using-radicle/running-a-seed-node https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/using-radicle/running-a-seed-n...
hadcomplained 6y ago
For any given P2P system which can be used to share a large amount of files, we can prove the system cannot exist with this question: Is there a way to prevent classified documents of the US stolen by China, or child pornography from being shared using the system? If the answer is yes: I'm afraid to tell you that the system is not peer-to-peer in the sense that there is a central authority to censor what content is to be shared. Therefore projects like youtube-dl can be easily erased. If the answer is no: Such a system with no possibility of censorship is too dangerous. What if there is literally no way to prevent information that threatens the security of the US from being shared? Fortunately as of now, no such a system exists on the planet. Maybe you now have a vague idea why such a system does not exist.
- Shared404 6y ago
  > Fortunately as of now, no such a system exists on the planet. Tor, GNUnet, I2P?
  - orthecreedence 6y ago
    The internet itself?
- cutemonster 6y ago
  What if the biggest threat against a country can instead be the president of that country.
RootKitBeerCat 6y ago
Why Ethereum? Why not Bitcoin?
pokstad 6y ago
Looks cool, but the p2p protocol seems over engineered. The problem is not so much how to share the code, you can still use email or some other centralized federated service to communicate with peers. Hell, you can even use S3 to store your backups and EC2 to run CI. The main issue is owning the platform that hosts your code, issues, and other artifacts. A hybrid system that allows you to host code with peers while integrating with existing infrastructure services would be more robust and an easier sell.
- orthecreedence 6y ago
  I specifically want to work on git projects, including the project management aspects, without having to deal with running my own server. The p2p protocol is not over engineered, it's exactly what's needed. Git is p2p. Why shouldn't it have p2p pm tools?
kyancey 6y ago
Or just use Fossil. It's already a distributed alternative to github. Every fossil install includes a built in web server with bug tracking and a wiki.
- tarruda 6y ago
  Fossil seems very interesting, especially because it uses sqlite as the storage format and is created by sqlite authors. Do you know if it is possible to use fossil locally pushing/pulling to/from git remote repositories? Thinking of some kind of bridge like git-svn.
regularemployee 6y ago
I don't understand peer to peer. Is every fork on everyone's computer? Who holds the latest source of truth? How does a client know if they are up to date if everyone else around the client is behind? Is there a good resource for learning p2p and how the protocol works around establishing who owns the most up to date data?
worldmerge 6y ago
This is incredible. When will a Windows client be a available?
egotripper 6y ago
I'd love to see just one (1) sentence on their home page that describes what Radicle is and does. I searched for the simple description by scrolling across the entire web page, from top to bottom, and did not see anything like it. There were all sorts of hints that it could be interesting, but c'mon.
themacguffinman 6y ago
At first glance the desktop client GUI looks really nice and easy to use, which I think is pretty important to get right. Unfortunately it loses a lot of convenience by not having some kind of web interface, even if it's only for discovery. One way for something like this to spread is by sharing project URLs that anyone can open in a web browser.
- xla 6y ago
  There is a webview for discovery, you can find it over here: http://seedling.radicle.xyz/ http://seedling.radicle.xyz/ There is a lot more we want to do for discovery, in this release we focused on replication of git based projects.
stefanha 6y ago
This is an interesting idea. I found the "How it Works" page a little confusing and have tried to explain the core ideas in a different way here: http://blog.vmsplice.net/2020/12/understanding-peer-to-peer-git-forges.html http://blog.vmsplice.net/2020/12/understanding-peer-to-peer-... This doesn't cover how Radicle works but instead explains the general ideas of peer-to-peer git forges.
- cloudhead 6y ago
  Fantastic, thanks!
- xla 6y ago
  Fantastic post indeed. Had a read and this has been an incredibly succinct outline of how our system works. Thanks for taking the time and sharing it.
- lftherios 6y ago
  This is awesome. Thank you for the write-up.
jy14898 6y ago
I haven't tried it yet, but I really like the concept and what I've seen so far.
nextaccountic 6y ago
> How will issues and PRs work? > Social collaboration features (i.e. bug reports, patches, discussions etc...) are all on the Radicle roadmap. They will work very similarly to the experiences we have now, but will be local-first and cryptographically signed. This means issues, PRs, and discussions will be more secure, available offline, and stored on your machine as git objects — not on a central server! Consider using an existing solution like https://github.com/dspinellis/git-issue https://github.com/dspinellis/git-issue or https://github.com/neithernut/git-dit https://github.com/neithernut/git-dit or https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug
OOPMan 6y ago
I was interested until I saw the etherium opt-in Keep your cryptocurrency out of my SCM
niutech 6y ago
Here are similar P2P git-like projects: https://github.com/welldan97/WeGit https://github.com/welldan97/WeGit https://github.com/cjb/GitTorrent https://github.com/cjb/GitTorrent - based on BitTorrent https://github.com/dhappy/git-remote-ipfs https://github.com/dhappy/git-remote-ipfs - based on IPFS https://github.com/noffle/hypergit/ https://github.com/noffle/hypergit/ - based on Dat

864 points by dweberz 6y ago

Not to be confused with Radicale; an Open-Source CalDAV and CardDAV Server https://radicale.org/3.0.html https://radicale.org/3.0.html

cloudhead 6y ago
The shameless plug we all needed
- kiwidrew 6y ago
  I read the title of this link and thought "Hmm, Radicale... not quite sure how a CalDAV server can be a Github alternative".
- enedil 6y ago
  Shameless plugs are when you talk about your product specifically, while this just mentioned some product of this name.

anonymousDan 6y ago

Looks cool. Has anyone actually used it?

viraptor 6y ago
Just kicking the tires. The beta was released just a couple of days ago. The very basic features seem to work just fine, and the rest is an obvious WIP. The team behind it seems super responsive and engaged.

varbhat 6y ago

I don't understand how using Radicle will free my code as they say in the site. So,how is using Radicle better than: 1. main repo on https://github.com https://github.com 2. mirror repo on https://repo.or.cz https://repo.or.cz 3. mirror repo on https://codeberg.org https://codeberg.org 4. local backup on my device and hard-disk. peer-to-peer is beautiful concept but note that git is already distributed VCS. you can have many remotes and mirrors. Just that p2p is not necessary here in git and using Radicle doesn't free my Code.

half-kh-hacker 6y ago
If your main repo lives on GitHub, your (primary) issue tracking is tied to GitHub.
- varbhat 6y ago
  Actually, it's not fault of git. Workflow of git takes place through email and patches. But,github wanted to make this process easier for the people,hence they included issues,fork and PR model. It was easily done with intuitive interface without necessity of email for workflow, but if you have asked me, i would have issues,wiki,etc. integrated within repo just like Fossil VCS. p2p is cool but not solution to this . gitea/gitlab/etc. already provide importing of issues with repos and if not,they must provide that feature.
  - phoe-krk 6y ago
    > Actually, it's not fault of git. Workflow of git takes place through email and patches. This invokes the "it's not a bug, it's a feature" mechanism. E.g. Fossil has no problem integrating issues, merge requests, and wiki pages inside its repositories.
    - varbhat 6y ago
      Actually, Gitlab and Gitea allows mirror of Github repos with Issues/wiki/PR etc. So, having issues in Github is not at all problem. I just gave you example of Fossil VCS which has issues,PR,etc. baked into VCS itself. Actually,what Radicle is doing is to extend git with p2p and not inventing new VCS with issues,etc. baked in. What i am telling is that p2p doesn't solve this unclear problem and p2p isn't much beneficial to git. And will there be enough peers to guarantee availability of repo ?
      - viraptor 6y ago
        > Actually, Gitlab and Gitea allows mirror of Github repos with Issues/wiki/PR etc. But GitHub does not mirror the issues/PRs from anyone, so it's a very one-sided connection.

meibo 6y ago

Why do I have to give them my email to even download the client? Is this a product or not? Sure sounds nice though, hope it turns out. Hope they are considering a web frontend for the network as well.

dweberz 6y ago
you don't need to give your email to download the client no.
- rudolfs 6y ago
  https://radicle.xyz/downloads.html https://radicle.xyz/downloads.html
  - viraptor 6y ago
    Not sure why they started the what practice, but you can see the download link in the website repo: https://github.com/radicle-dev/radicle.xyz/pull/145/files#diff-357908b71776a63acee9ad4cd874253509c83df8f9799e32256432b4b7f61395R17 https://github.com/radicle-dev/radicle.xyz/pull/145/files#di... Specifically: mac https://releases.radicle.xyz/radicle-upstream-0.1.4.dmg https://releases.radicle.xyz/radicle-upstream-0.1.4.dmg Linux https://releases.radicle.xyz/radicle-upstream-0.1.4.AppImage https://releases.radicle.xyz/radicle-upstream-0.1.4.AppImage Release bucket listing https://releases.radicle.xyz/ https://releases.radicle.xyz/

adsweedler 6y ago

"Work securely offline" Is... is that a problem with GitHub that stops you from doing that?

YetAnotherNick 6y ago
You need internet for pull and push. I think(hoping) that they meant within a LAN it could work without internet.
- rsa25519 6y ago
  (I'm not shooting the messenger here) If so, that would mean pushing/pulling within the LAN only... which Git supports already
  - cloudhead 6y ago
    You can't push within LAN and then have that automatically available when online to the wider network, unless you have some form of continuous replication to some public-facing host. This is what Radicle does for you.
  - toyg 6y ago
    If Github is unreachable, you don’t have a bugtracker, wiki etc. - you are working “blind”.
- cloudhead 6y ago
  No, the full feature-set is available offline. You can browse your repos and any other repo you replicated, and push/pull. What offline means is simply that your changes won't immediately be replicated to peers. But the full app experience (Read and write) works offline.
dutchmartin 6y ago
Well, reading issues is something you cannot when you are offline from github. Unless you downloaded them beforehand of course.
6y ago

fireattack 6y ago

This doesn't look like "alternative to GitHub" to me; you don't need to download any client to use GitHub and having a nice web interface is one of the most defining feature of GitHub.

thruflo22 6y ago
GitHub is a “social coding” platform that provides collaboration features (access control, issues, etc) on top of Git. This is a social coding tool that provides collaboration features on top of Git. It provides a desktop app because it’s peer to peer. That’s an advantage over a web UI for developers looking to avoid a dependency on a centralised third party. You are free to continue to play in walled gardens but this is very much an alternative to that.
- fireattack 6y ago
  Well the disadvantage is it doesn't even have a Windows client.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    This is a first announced beta release. It doesn't have a few planned features. I'm sure windows build will happen at some point too.
  - tpoacher 6y ago
    Surely that's an advantage. :p
    - fireattack 6y ago
      I knew you're joking, but gatekeeping isn't what got GitHub this far.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hanklazard 6y ago

Would you consider linking a white paper off the homepage? (If there is one, I'm not finding it). I like the sound of this project but I really would like to understand it more fully.

lftherios 6y ago
docs here https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/what-is-radicle.html https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/what-is-radicle.html

nnn1234 6y ago

like other folks who have said this before, the question is who is this for and what is it that github doesnt provide but radicle does? I can have git installed on my device, work locally and instead of pointing to github, have a scuttlebutt like updates for PRs Question is who wants this? and what does this do to open source code?

geranim0 6y ago
youtube-dl?

a-dub 6y ago

i think this is technically interesting, but i'm curious in practice what it gives project maintainers over hosting their own gitlab instance or similar...

cloudhead 6y ago
Good question. I know of a few projects hosting their own GitLab instance, the problem is that this requires me to create a new account/identity for each of these instances. This is a far cry from what GitHub brought, which was a single "place" and social network where you could browse and contribute to all projects with the same account. Radicle attempts to take back control (just like running your own instance), but without giving up network effects.
viraptor 6y ago
I've got a number of tiny projects. Realistically if they're not hosted on GitHub, they won't get contributions. "Setup another login on my gitlab instance" would close to ensure nobody collaborates on it. This allows me to both disconnect them from a centralised service and remove the "you need a separate identity" step.
- pferde 6y ago
  Oh come on. It's not like making an account is overly difficult or demanding. You are not required to send two forms of ID or a blood sample by mail. Anyone who really wants to contribute to the project (and scratch their itch) will not have a problem with entering a username, password, and perhaps use a validation link from an e-mail. It might discourage people with just fleeting interest. And as a hypothetical FOSS project maintainer, I know I'd rather have one of the first kind of contributor than ten of the second kind. Especially if the alternative is to be beholden to the likes of Microsoft. Of course, the best solution would be something like ForgeFed, but I can't see that meaningfully taking off (there's no way Github will ever adopt it). I'd love to be wrong, though.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    The step is not difficult. The step exists and that's enough. Search through HN comments and see how many people see creating a new account as annoying. And I understand it - If I have a one line fix but the relevant system requires a new account, I don't bother. If it's a significant fix, but the project requires extra signed document (CLA?), they're getting a description in an issue instead. There's a reason for a recent trend where new services let you jump right in and start using them. Then require amount creation only when you do something significant. And for a small project that potential drive-by fix is valuable. It's not like I get to throw away most people to select the best ones. I get one potential fix a year - either it's a seamless experience or they disappear.

isaacimagine 6y ago

Tried out radicle a while back with a recent project - it's really cool!

casi 6y ago

This looks fun, will give it a go. The inbuilt funding sounds interesting, is that like bounties on issues? Or more like Patreon sponsorships?

cloudhead 6y ago
More like the latter. The first funding feature we are launching will allow you to set a monthly budget and have it split amongst a set of users/maintainers of your choosing.

LockAndLol 6y ago

Is there a CLI? I can't download yet another Electron app and waste 90MB on another Chromium instance.

cloudhead 6y ago
I feel you. A CLI is on our roadmap, as well as moving to a lighter-weight app container[0] [0]: https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri

ilaksh 6y ago

I wonder if they started on an Ethereum 2.0 L2 implementation. Maybe it can actually be almost the same thing?

cloudhead 6y ago
Almost the same thing as what?
- ilaksh 6y ago
  As L1
  - cloudhead 6y ago
    Yeah, we will eventually move to L2 if it is able to deliver what L1 does at a cheaper cost. Currently this isn’t the case, as only token transfers are possible on L2.

nikitaga 6y ago

What a nice funky design. That front page has a soul, unlike almost everything else I see nowadays.

viraptor 6y ago
There's a post about the design here: https://radicle.community/t/the-journey-to-radicles-new-brand-and-website/355 https://radicle.community/t/the-journey-to-radicles-new-bran...
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  The main site page is just awful. It's amateurish, image/animation heavy to no value, almost negligable information. They may have something good but the site's just obscuring it.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    I think it does a good job listing project ideas / features / roadmap and is a pleasant step away from the bland corporate brands. Love the esthetic. You just can't satisfy everyone.
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      The front page alone is 9MB. Edit: perhaps more importantly, I have to gain a feeling for the product, to work out whether it's worth the perhaps nontrivial time evaluating it. If I'm presented with this what it indicates to me, rightly or not, is that the product is image-led, the project is perhaps childish if the website is (clips from ghost in the shell?), fails to understand technical load (the website's bloated, what does it say about technical competence of the company) and whatever. I don't care about corporate blandness, I need solid info, directly in front of me, and not having my eyes pulled away by flicker. I could be completely getting the value of this project wrong but first impressions suggest I may well be wasting my time with it.

rarestoma 6y ago

cool! I really love the design!

MartijnBraam 6y ago

This seems so unnecessary, replace the blockchain stuff with email and you have git as it was originally intended. no custom software needed.

dweberz 6y ago
I believe you didn't even read the text. Ethereum is used to send money to maintainers. not sure how email does that...
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  To add to that: there are several major stablecoins on Ethereum: USDT, which is backed by BitFinex and has $12 billion in circulation, USDC from Coinbase/Circle with $3 billion in circulation, GUSD, from Gemini, BUSD from Binance with $700M in circulation, and DAI, which is decentralized and has $1 billion in circulation. These are all ERC20 tokens so easy to integrate into Radicle, and offer a way to allow developers to get paid peer-to-peer while completely avoiding the price volatility of typical cryptocurrencies.
arp242 6y ago
There are so many issues with email that I'm not even sure where to start, and they've been repeated many times in previous HN threads anyway. Suffice to say that clearly it doesn't work for a lot of people, because otherwise we'd all be using it.
t0astbread 6y ago
How can email alone replace GitHub? Email with something like GitHub (like sourcehut) maybe but "no custom software" definitely not.
- mch82 6y ago
  git-send-email https://git-scm.com/docs/git-send-email https://git-scm.com/docs/git-send-email Git was designed for patches (diffs) to be sent in email. That’s how many people used it before GitHub.

tyrion 6y ago

This seems really cool! I am wondering if it can host private repository as well, or is it just meant to host public repositories?

xla 6y ago
For now the focus is on public collaboration on public projects. Features for private/encrypted repos are definitely on the roadmap.

dessant 6y ago

Awesome project, though the perpetuation of open source software needing to be free is regrettable. > Software as it should be. > Free forever Mostly all popular projects need some form of funding, and setting the expectaction of a free lunch forever for new users is not healthy. Btw, do you remember who used the tagline "It's free and always will be"? It was Facebook.

xla 6y ago
Important to note that "Free" here doesn't refer to "for free". You rpoint about funding of popular projects was at the heart of radicle from the beginning. We believe that FOSS as backbone of the digital infrastructure needs to be sustainable, which includes the resources/funds to maintain it and keep it free and open. If you wanna find out more about the philosophy we follow, here is the original research and premise: http://oscoin.io/ http://oscoin.io/
merelydev 6y ago
I think it is Free as in Freedom.
- saberd 6y ago
  So free as in open source, why is this called free and not open then?
  - cowsandmilk 6y ago
    Free is a term used by the community for decades, literally in the name of the Free Software Foundation. I guess you could argue that their need to explain what free means indicates it was a bad choice to use, but it is pretty standard now. https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software
- dessant 6y ago
  That's possible, but they also mention "Completely open source" in the same list, and that would make "Free as in Freedom" redundant.

sdan 6y ago

It's weird to think P2P is becoming all the craze for "privacy" while it's the backbone of the internet: it is p2p. It's just nowadays its more of P2(big cloud servers)2p; which could be a good thing depending on who you ask and your usecases.

sktrdie 6y ago
I always thought maintaining servers was silly since BitTorrent already proved we can achieve higher bandwidth throughput using lots of clients communicating together. But p2p is more about the network connectivity than whether the node is an Amazon server or a mobile phone. The normal Web for instance does not build on this network nodes capabilities. We need more apps that build these kind of collaborative and self-sustainable networks
- skohan 6y ago
  I mean it works in the use-case where you have a single file version everyone is hosting, but it gets a lot more complicated when you’re talking about dynamic content doesn’t it? For instance how would you synchronize all the content on a hacker news thread between all the clients?

ryanar 6y ago

I spent a lot of time watching the GIFs on repeat rather than reading the text on the web page. It is quirky, I like the style, but it is a distraction from the message.

dsign 6y ago

We kind of need this yesterday... what's the point of having a decentralized git if the issues are centralized at Github? (which, not to make too fine a point of it, is owned by Microsoft). Even if you host your own Gitlab, there is always that day when the hard drive of the server fails and the ops have to spend a weekend restoring backups while changing hosting company because who crashes the hard-drive of an expensive VPS anyway... I hope Radicle gets a lot of funding and tons of adoption.

fn1 6y ago
Can't you just serialize all issues into the repository and then write scripts/hooks to sync them in/out of textfiles in the repo?
- dm3 6y ago
  I know of an attempt to implement an approach to track issues and code in a decentralized manner with SIT[0]. Unfortunatlely the project seems to be dead. [0] https://github.com/sit-fyi https://github.com/sit-fyi
- m4rtink 6y ago
  Pagure does something like that: https://pagure.io/pagure https://pagure.io/pagure All the issues, wiki, PR review are stored in Git as well. You still need a Pagure instance (that you can self host if you want) to provide the web ui, but you can easily just clone the repo and put it to a different instance, keeping all your metadata.
- masklinn 6y ago
  This was attempted multiple times in the past. None succeeded, in large parts because at a fundamental level issues are a synchronisation point, making issues part of the repository adds overhead and complexity but doesn't really give you anything, and furthermore it increases complexity for reporters.
- hamaluik 6y ago
  I’ve used git-bug[1] successfully in the past for something similar but more ergonomic. 1: https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug

blargmaster42_8 6y ago

Drop the crypto scam angle pleas

jakry 6y ago

Is this based on Matrix?

cloudhead 6y ago
It isn’t, no. It’s based on a protocol we’ve developed called Radicle Link, which provides a gossip layer on top of git.

Aeolun 6y ago

How and why is literally everything peer to peer in the tech community also somehow connected to ethereum?

cloudhead 6y ago
Because you want a way to move money around eventually. Eg. How do you do GitHub sponsors p2p?
- Aeolun 6y ago
  Is there anything wrong with using actual money to do this?
hobofan 6y ago
Because the cryptocurrency hype funds/funded most of those projects and/or the prospect of adding a cryptocurrency to the projects causes VCs to fund those projects. In this particular case Radicle came out of OScoin (or is the new incarnation of it?) and was funded by BlueYard.
- amself 6y ago
  Right. I was surprised to see they chose to implement social coding after integrating with Ethereum, but it makes sense considering all the hype.
  - lftherios 6y ago
    we are actually working on both problems in parallel. it's just that the skillset required and complexity is very different.
ffpip 6y ago
Peer to peer AI Machine learning with blockchain on AWS cloud.
simias 6y ago
My first reaction when I read "peer-to-peer" in the title was "cool" followed immediately with "oh it's going to push some cryptocurrency crap, isn't it?" But honestly after reading the page it look fine to me. Oddly enough they seem to use cryptocurrencies as... currency. They don't bullshit you by saying that you're going to store your code on the blockchain. Besides, while I long ago became tired of the cryptocurrency crowd reinventing squared wheels every other month, the problem of rewarding open source developers is still very much an open issue, so I'm willing to give it a chance, even if I'm not holding my breath. This seems like a cool project frankly, at least on paper, I don't think it's fair to discard it just because it bundles some optional Ethereum support. Actually after downloading the upstream client my only complaint so far is that it's yet an other bloated Electron app, but such is life in 2020...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jeanlucas 6y ago

If it's free forever I'll give four years and check it.up again

t0astbread 6y ago
It's P2P, so "free forever" isn't unrealistic.
- jillesvangurp 6y ago
  Somebody still needs to agree to hosting your data. Incentivizing peers to host your encrypted data is not a solved problem. IPFS is trying to bootstrap some cryptocurrency to fix that but they seems to be taking their sweet time with that. So, ultimately, you always end up with somebody providing the convenience of not throwing your data away for a fee. Github and Gitlab seem to be the popular options for that. Gitlab is actually open source and you can self host it if you want and many do. But the reason they have a nice valuation is that they have lots of customers that prefer them to do it. Given that it's MIT Licensed, you can even do that and offer it as a service probably (Amazon, there's a nice idea for you :-) ).
  - diggan 6y ago
    > IPFS is trying to bootstrap some cryptocurrency to fix that but they seems to be taking their sweet time with that AFAIK, Filecoin is live now, and seems you can use it now for getting peers to host your IPFS data. But, I'm also unsure that incentivizing peers with actual money is the best and/or only solution. BitTorrent works today for free, many peers are seeding content just to be seeders. DC++ worked yesterday, where people shared data just to share data. While probably offering money for storing data will get more people onboard to store others data, it doesn't seem to be the only solution we have at hand to get free sharing of data.

nrvn 6y ago

I would like to see a comparison with Sourcehut.

htrap 6y ago

We are building https://gitopia.org https://gitopia.org - Permanent Data Storage provided by Arweave - Works from within git with the help of git-remote-helper `npm install -g git-remote-gitopia` so no need to learn new tooling - Built-in incentivization to token holders who also take part in the governance of Gitopia - Token holders share revenue made by the platform - You can mirror your GitHub repositories now using the Github Mirror Action. Follow step by step from here -https://thetechtrap.com/posts/push-your-code-to-gitopia/ https://thetechtrap.com/posts/push-your-code-to-gitopia/ - We are now working on the governance and collaboration workflows that will enable transparency in open source development and provide the stakeholders to have a say in the direction of the project. You can reach out to us on https://twitter.com/gitopiaOrg https://twitter.com/gitopiaOrg https://discord.gg/mVpQVW3vKE https://discord.gg/mVpQVW3vKE

htrap 6y ago
Link to git-remote-gitopia source hosted on Gitopia: https://gitopia.org/#/z_TqsbmVJOKzpuQH4YrYXv_Q0DrkwDwc0UqapRrE0Do/git-remote-gitopia https://gitopia.org/#/z_TqsbmVJOKzpuQH4YrYXv_Q0DrkwDwc0UqapR...
SamuelAdams 6y ago
Hey FYI your landing page gave me this error, Firefox ESR 78.5.0. Right now it's a big blank screen with no content. {…} code: "EACCES" errno: 13 message: "Error: EACCES: Permission denied." path: undefined stack: "n@https://gitopia.org/main.js:277:55609\non/<@https://gitopia.org/main.js:277:136762\n" https://gitopia.org/main.js:277:55609\non/<@https://gitopia.... syscall: "" <prototype>: Object { constructor: n(t, n, r), toString: toString(), toJSON: toJSON() , … } main.js:339:94885 c https://gitopia.org/main.js:339 https://gitopia.org/main.js:339 configure https://gitopia.org/main.js:277 https://gitopia.org/main.js:277 store https://gitopia.org/main.js:277 https://gitopia.org/main.js:277 on https://gitopia.org/main.js:277 https://gitopia.org/main.js:277
- htrap 6y ago
  Thanks for flagging this. We'll look into it. Meanwhile you can try from a different browser.

jwmoz 6y ago

That design is amazing.

rational_indian 6y ago

Isn't git peer-to-peer already? Why would anyone need this?

cloudhead 6y ago
Have you used GitHub? It adds a bunch of functionality on top of git.
Taek 6y ago
GitHub's primary value add to the world isn't that it's a web interface to git. It's also a social network, an issue tracker, a workflow management system, a code review tool, a wiki-builder, a frontend for your CI, and plenty more. If github disappears tomorrow, all the code will be safe and decentralized already, yes, but most of the workflow of the software world would be significantly stunted for a good while, because everyone would need to migrate to something else (like GitLab) and then take the time to rebuild all of the data and flow that is on Github but isn't captured within the actual git repository.
- xla 6y ago
  This comment is spot on, people who jump to the conversation with the argument that Git is already decentralised don't understand where the most value is captured when it comes to collaboration. It's the social artifact, issues, PRs, etc. And the cost of migrating the community of a project/organisation and their social artifacts is a massive cost, carrying the risk of splitting the community and or stifling any other progress to stay relevant.

simias 6y ago

I've installed the "upstream" client but I must say that I'm a bit confused. I imported a couple of git repositories that ended up on http://seedling.radicle.xyz/ http://seedling.radicle.xyz/, so I thought I did it right, but then if I try to add projects from that very page it keeps searching and never finds anything (they're stuck in "keep looking" mode). Also I don't see how you can create issues. Is it not implemented yet? It's an interesting project but it feels like very early alpha-grade to me. The client gives very little feedback on what's happening and what you can do.

xla 6y ago
This is really helpful feedback. Especially the part about not getting enough feedback during operations. And yes social features like issues and PRs have not been the focus in this release, as we focused on replication. If you are looking for more help you can join the community matrix and we take it from there: https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/using-radicle/join-the-community https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/using-radicle/join-the-communi...
- simias 6y ago
  Thanks for the feedback on my feedback. My recommendation would be to make a very simple tutorial (maybe even a video) walking the user through checkouting a remote project, publishing their own and start hacking while explaining the core concepts. The docs are pretty good from what I see, but when you're just starting and you don't know what you're looking for it's a bit overwhelming I thought.
erk__ 6y ago
It seems that it is sadly only built for AppImage and MacOS neither of work on any of my current machines. Though I guess it just means that I have to figure out how to build it myself.

fastglass 6y ago

it would be super interesting to know how private would work

lucb1e 6y ago
It's not 1989 anymore, we have proper cryptosystems now. I don't have a worked example but elsewhere in the thread someone, it sounded like a dev, mentioned it's being worked on. You can encrypt for certain public keys and then only those people can decrypt the contents.
cloudhead 6y ago
Privacy by necessity will use end-to-end encryption, as artifacts will end up being propagated on the network. This isn't however so easy for long-lived artifacts (eg. what happens if your key is compromised sometime in the future), and we will need things such as forward secrecy.
- fastglass 6y ago
  forgive the abbreviation, I was referring private repositories

18af219e 6y ago

Interesting idea, but 'peer-to-peer'? Is water wet?

flas9sd 6y ago

at the end of the LPC2019 talk "Reflections on kernel development process, quality and testing" by Dmitry Vyukov there's a slide with some Radicle examples. The following slide he links to a post by Konstantin Ryabitsev "Patches carved into developer sigchains" that shows Securescuttlebut on IPFS as an alternative to Email as decentralized system (search for git-ssb).

withPurpose9973 6y ago

No thanks. Setting up git repos on a local machine is easy enough. Sorry/not sorry web-heads, but distributed ephemeral everything on a magical network no one can intuit is going backwards. Importing yet another pie in the sky idea is a non-starter. It’s humans doing human wanky nonsense. Not much of a revolution at this point.

LeicaLatte 6y ago

Very cool!

gitweb 6y ago

Look into how the Linux Kernel and other projects do development. I think a larger issue is why do we need a platform like GitHub when SCM can be done through email?

fungos 6y ago

I'm impressed and I see potential on this one. I tried different ones over time but most fail at on-boarding. This was seamless and really easy. In about 2 minutes I successfully shared my project and followed known projects. This means this mvp works and it let me craving for more, I want to use this! I want issues and PR support to prove this can effectively work as a github replacement to me. Now, the downside of this mvp is that there is no project discovery in the client itself. We need to go search for projects in a browser, in this page http://seedling.radicle.xyz/ http://seedling.radicle.xyz/ which is a bit confusing. Considering the client itself is electron, it could at least, open this page for us somewhere. Or, we could at least have a less "noisy" seedling page focused on search and I would not even know it wasn't part of the client itself. Overall, awesome project. I really hope it will grow and add the missing essential features. If I could vote, with priority these would be: - project discovery integrated in the client - issues support - pr support - multiple identities Anyway, great job!

geoah 6y ago
hm, that is interesting, the fact that projects are public and advertised by default was not clear to me while going through the onboarding.
- xla 6y ago
  Thanks for flagging that, definitely something we are looking to improve in making it clear but also in how much control the user has over that.
- erichdongubler 6y ago
  For reference: https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/understanding-radicle/faq/#can-i-create-private-repositories-on-radicle https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/understanding-radicle/faq/#can...
cloudhead 6y ago
Thanks for the feedback! The priorities you mention are very close to our own, and we have already started working on some of them. We will definitely be integrating discovery more closely into the app in the long run.

NoelJacob 6y ago

Gooyz, Windows?

snvzz 6y ago

Trying to read the website drove me away. There's a time and a place for this sort of web design. I feel strongly that presenting some software to technical minded people is not.

NickRRau 6y ago

Is it possible to self host this and isolate it on your own p2p network? Would be really cool to handle the decentralized part on my own computers without needing to hook into the global p2p. Gonna keep an eye on it.

xla 6y ago
That's absolutely possible. Everyone is empowered and encouraged to run their own seed nodes. Which would allow you to have an isolated network. Check the docs to find out how to run your own: https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/using-radicle/running-a-seed-node https://docs.radicle.xyz/docs/using-radicle/running-a-seed-n...

hadcomplained 6y ago

For any given P2P system which can be used to share a large amount of files, we can prove the system cannot exist with this question: Is there a way to prevent classified documents of the US stolen by China, or child pornography from being shared using the system? If the answer is yes: I'm afraid to tell you that the system is not peer-to-peer in the sense that there is a central authority to censor what content is to be shared. Therefore projects like youtube-dl can be easily erased. If the answer is no: Such a system with no possibility of censorship is too dangerous. What if there is literally no way to prevent information that threatens the security of the US from being shared? Fortunately as of now, no such a system exists on the planet. Maybe you now have a vague idea why such a system does not exist.

Shared404 6y ago
> Fortunately as of now, no such a system exists on the planet. Tor, GNUnet, I2P?
- orthecreedence 6y ago
  The internet itself?
cutemonster 6y ago
What if the biggest threat against a country can instead be the president of that country.

RootKitBeerCat 6y ago

Why Ethereum? Why not Bitcoin?

pokstad 6y ago

Looks cool, but the p2p protocol seems over engineered. The problem is not so much how to share the code, you can still use email or some other centralized federated service to communicate with peers. Hell, you can even use S3 to store your backups and EC2 to run CI. The main issue is owning the platform that hosts your code, issues, and other artifacts. A hybrid system that allows you to host code with peers while integrating with existing infrastructure services would be more robust and an easier sell.

orthecreedence 6y ago
I specifically want to work on git projects, including the project management aspects, without having to deal with running my own server. The p2p protocol is not over engineered, it's exactly what's needed. Git is p2p. Why shouldn't it have p2p pm tools?

kyancey 6y ago

Or just use Fossil. It's already a distributed alternative to github. Every fossil install includes a built in web server with bug tracking and a wiki.

tarruda 6y ago
Fossil seems very interesting, especially because it uses sqlite as the storage format and is created by sqlite authors. Do you know if it is possible to use fossil locally pushing/pulling to/from git remote repositories? Thinking of some kind of bridge like git-svn.

regularemployee 6y ago

I don't understand peer to peer. Is every fork on everyone's computer? Who holds the latest source of truth? How does a client know if they are up to date if everyone else around the client is behind? Is there a good resource for learning p2p and how the protocol works around establishing who owns the most up to date data?

worldmerge 6y ago

This is incredible. When will a Windows client be a available?

egotripper 6y ago

I'd love to see just one (1) sentence on their home page that describes what Radicle is and does. I searched for the simple description by scrolling across the entire web page, from top to bottom, and did not see anything like it. There were all sorts of hints that it could be interesting, but c'mon.

themacguffinman 6y ago

At first glance the desktop client GUI looks really nice and easy to use, which I think is pretty important to get right. Unfortunately it loses a lot of convenience by not having some kind of web interface, even if it's only for discovery. One way for something like this to spread is by sharing project URLs that anyone can open in a web browser.

xla 6y ago
There is a webview for discovery, you can find it over here: http://seedling.radicle.xyz/ http://seedling.radicle.xyz/ There is a lot more we want to do for discovery, in this release we focused on replication of git based projects.

stefanha 6y ago

This is an interesting idea. I found the "How it Works" page a little confusing and have tried to explain the core ideas in a different way here: http://blog.vmsplice.net/2020/12/understanding-peer-to-peer-git-forges.html http://blog.vmsplice.net/2020/12/understanding-peer-to-peer-... This doesn't cover how Radicle works but instead explains the general ideas of peer-to-peer git forges.

cloudhead 6y ago
Fantastic, thanks!
xla 6y ago
Fantastic post indeed. Had a read and this has been an incredibly succinct outline of how our system works. Thanks for taking the time and sharing it.
lftherios 6y ago
This is awesome. Thank you for the write-up.

jy14898 6y ago

I haven't tried it yet, but I really like the concept and what I've seen so far.

nextaccountic 6y ago

> How will issues and PRs work? > Social collaboration features (i.e. bug reports, patches, discussions etc...) are all on the Radicle roadmap. They will work very similarly to the experiences we have now, but will be local-first and cryptographically signed. This means issues, PRs, and discussions will be more secure, available offline, and stored on your machine as git objects — not on a central server! Consider using an existing solution like https://github.com/dspinellis/git-issue https://github.com/dspinellis/git-issue or https://github.com/neithernut/git-dit https://github.com/neithernut/git-dit or https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug

OOPMan 6y ago

I was interested until I saw the etherium opt-in Keep your cryptocurrency out of my SCM

niutech 6y ago

Here are similar P2P git-like projects: https://github.com/welldan97/WeGit https://github.com/welldan97/WeGit https://github.com/cjb/GitTorrent https://github.com/cjb/GitTorrent - based on BitTorrent https://github.com/dhappy/git-remote-ipfs https://github.com/dhappy/git-remote-ipfs - based on IPFS https://github.com/noffle/hypergit/ https://github.com/noffle/hypergit/ - based on Dat