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I don't know, talking about blockchain became such an extreme topic that one can't just talk about it, even if it's a note that "We had a chat with Eth Foundati

by pyr0hu 4y ago

I don't know, talking about blockchain became such an extreme topic that one can't just talk about it, even if it's a note that "We had a chat with Eth Foundation" and people are coming with foaming mouth. The article does not mention that they are thinking about _crypto_ but _blockchain_, which, seems like not a lot of people know about, does not 100% means "im going to release a shitcoin, haha, rugpull". It's insane.

krageon 4y ago
In most environments this can be discussed, I think it is a specific subsection of IT professionals that are just quite militant about the subject. It is unpleasant, but just like all fundamentalists they're always going to exist. To my view, the best course of action is to politely ignore them and go on with your life.
h4kor 4y ago
Because there are no use cases for blockchains. Humanity spent billions (trillions?) of $ on this technology and there is no use for it. Now the people who sank their money into this, desperately try to find some fools to pass the hot potato to.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  > there is no use for it. No use for it? The blockchain is a massive achievement. It's a decentralized verification system. Of course it has plenty of uses beyond crypto currencies.
- emptysongglass 4y ago
  That isn't true. A blockchain powers Secure Scuttlebutt, Jami, Urbit, and has use anywhere a verified supply chain is needed. Because some people have politicized it, now all blockchains are scams or "useless". But this is demonstrably not true. It's just a technology and people have misused it but that doesn't render the technology itself useless or a scam.
  - The_Colonel 4y ago
    I get your point, but ... > A blockchain powers Secure Scuttlebutt, Jami, Urbit I've honestly never heard about any of these. But I have heard/read about many other "uses" of blockchain, which ultimately boil down to scam. There are possible use cases, they just drown in the sea of scams.
  - hiq 4y ago
    > A blockchain powers Secure Scuttlebutt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Scuttlebutt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Scuttlebutt doesn't have the word blockchain on it, and from reading the protocol section, I don't think it uses a public blockchain as defined there: https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2019/02/theres_no_good_reaso.html https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2019/02/theres_no_g... So you're just talking about something else, but as Schneier argues, anything other than a public blockchain is nothing new and has little to do with all the hype beyond the confusing names.
    - sdiacom 4y ago
      Per the Wikipedia article: > User content in SSB is organized as an append-only sequence of immutable messages, where messages cryptographically sign adjacent messages for the purpose of guaranteeing unforgeabilitity of the sequences as they are replicated to other peers. That's pretty much a blockchain. Of course, they don't call it a blockchain themselves, because the Scuttlebutt people are not running a grift, they're creating a communication protocol that happens to use cryptographic primitives similarly to how blockchains use them.
      - xigoi 4y ago
        Do the messages require computationally expensive proofs?
        sdiacom 4y ago
        Thankfully, no. I don't think that's a requirement for a blockchain, though.
- bartread 4y ago
  > Because there are no use cases for blockchains. I think this is it or, at least, to moderate slightly, there are few valid use cases for blockchain. The top comment, from Theo Jackson, captures it really well: "Please don’t. If there is a requested feature that _requires_ blockchain I’d be interested, but “possible ways to combine LibreOffice with blockchain technologies” sounds like a solution in search of a problem." What are the actual problems LibreOffice are trying to solve here? It just feels like this post dropped in from 4 years ago where everyone seemed to be trying to shoehorn blockchain into everything with no clear idea of what they were actually trying to achieve. And then there's the fact that many blockchain implementations have an absolutely horrendous energy requirement. It was always odious (or at least from about 2013 onwards) but, in 2022, in the midst of an energy crisis and rising prices, it's both ethically and environmentally indefensible. I know that Ethereum has been working to address this but the reality is that for many extant cases blockchain is horrifically compute intensive and inefficient.
  - web3isgoing 4y ago
    Ethereum energy consumption is now negligible: https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption
    - xigoi 4y ago
      …due to proof of stake, which requires cryptocurrency. So much for “it has nothing to do with cryptocurrency”.
- azangru 4y ago
  > Because there are no use cases for blockchains. Someone in the comments on LibreOffice blog expressed the same opinion. Which surprised me. Has the consensus been reached among the serious non-grifting public that blockchains are useless to represent peer-to-peer trustless money? Has bitcoin been declared a failure?
  - xigoi 4y ago
    Bitcoin is wasting humongous amounts of energy during a climate and energy crisis, which makes it morally unacceptable.
    - fsflover 4y ago
      Banks also require a lot of energy.
      - DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
        And so does heating swimming pools, baking bread and enjoying one's night at the movie theater, none of which excuses or justifies wasting energy for whatever real or imagined purpose.
      - xigoi 4y ago
        Not nearly as much.
    - azangru 4y ago
      That's not the argument the parent is making. They say, no use cases.
  - soco 4y ago
    I'm not sure how a word processor uses peer-to-peer trustless money. The discussion shouldn't even be about crypto and blockchains, but about how crypto and blockchain can benefit LibreOffice. Given we cannot identify how crypto and blockchain can benefit anybody (well, except scammers and those 11 folks who actually transferred assets to third world countries) I believe the topic should have quickly died off but yeah...
sdiacom 4y ago
Good. The mere mention of "combining existing successful open-source product with blockchain" should get about the same reaction as "combining fruit bowls with metal spikes". This is a good thing, it means that people are waking up to what crypto actually is. There is no successful or interesting combination of "useful thing" and "blockchain", unless your definition of success is siphoning money from technologically illiterate people to grifters' pockets. It's evident that the person who wrote the blog post does not understand that they're being approached by grifters, who want to use their existing brand goodwill to expand their grift's outreach. Being approached by the Ethereum foundation should be treated like cold emails asking if you'd like to put a link to a casino in your website. I'm glad that the community was able to clarify this for them.
- Brian_K_White 4y ago
  You just exemplified their point. original post: we're not talking about crypto comment: they're not talking about crypto but people still just say "F them crypto is bad!" this comment: F them because crypto is bad! Crypto (money, nfts) is bad, I think smart contracts are a mistake too, and I don't think LO needs blockchain either, but the objection is more like the one someone else said about, if there's some feature that needs it, fine, but don't just look for some excuse to use a solution with no problem. But also it would be absurd to say that cryptography, authentication, and povenence have no valid application with documents.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    Context matters. This wasn’t LibreOffice talking to a researcher. It was a conversation started by the Ethereum folks. They’re crypto.
  - dhdgrygev 4y ago
    There are no real world use cases of blockchain tech besides crypto. Or can you demonstrate one?
    - zimpenfish 4y ago
Sakos 4y ago
I'm open to the idea that blockchain might somehow be useful for something somehow in the future. I don't see what LibreOffice could gain from blockchain. I also think it's telling that they'd rather ignore the negative feedback because they want to apparently continue on this path than actually recognize that people don't want blockchain garbage ruining what's otherwise a good project. I'm looking forward to the next post in 6-12 months where they talk about all the "awesome" plans they have with blockchain and they'll have the comments locked from the beginning. Oh, and not to forget the ensuing fork because honestly, we just want a word processor that doesn't suck and isn't proprietary.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  > I'm open to the idea that blockchain might somehow be useful for something somehow in the future. I don't see what LibreOffice could gain from blockchain. It's not because you can't imagine anything that nobody else can.
- mavhc 4y ago
  Why shouldn't you ignore feedback that's ill informed, reactionary, or just wrong?
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
    Maybe because it's coming from the people who read your blog and use your software?
    - mavhc 4y ago
      Most of your users are idiots though, they'll just ask for a faster horse
      - DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
        Aren't you the guy who tried to sell a faster blockchain to me last week so I can keep better track of all the horses in my stable?
willeh 4y ago
It is not insane, far too many orgs are asking how can we shoehorn blockchain into X. The end-result is usually some vaporware, some weird commercialisation, or outright fraud. Libreoffice is a foundation, it should act in accordance with its charter. The public, likewise, should hold its officers accountable for acting in a way best serves these ends.
belter 4y ago
Maybe because nobody else has seen other use than shitcoins. Arguing this is not about crypto, but blockchain, when nobody has seen other use cases is the disingenuous part of all this.
forgotpwd16 4y ago
>even if it's a note that "We had a chat with Eth Foundation" That's how it starts everytime. "We're just talking about it" ends up in shoving blockchains where they aren't needed.
nkrisc 4y ago
The post itself is bizarre. Imagine they had said: "we had a discussion with Denuvo about DRM (We’re not talking about putting DRM into LibreOffice!). In what ways could people find a combination of LibreOffice Technology and DRM be useful?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo I'm not trying to equate blockchain and DRM. The big question lingering over their post is "why?" From what I can see the essence of the reaction is towards the fact they appear to be in search of a problem for their shiny solution. Maybe they find a real problem, but usually you don't have your solution before you find it.

by pyr0hu 4y ago

krageon 4y ago

In most environments this can be discussed, I think it is a specific subsection of IT professionals that are just quite militant about the subject. It is unpleasant, but just like all fundamentalists they're always going to exist. To my view, the best course of action is to politely ignore them and go on with your life.

h4kor 4y ago

Because there are no use cases for blockchains. Humanity spent billions (trillions?) of $ on this technology and there is no use for it. Now the people who sank their money into this, desperately try to find some fools to pass the hot potato to.

ekianjo 4y ago
> there is no use for it. No use for it? The blockchain is a massive achievement. It's a decentralized verification system. Of course it has plenty of uses beyond crypto currencies.
emptysongglass 4y ago
That isn't true. A blockchain powers Secure Scuttlebutt, Jami, Urbit, and has use anywhere a verified supply chain is needed. Because some people have politicized it, now all blockchains are scams or "useless". But this is demonstrably not true. It's just a technology and people have misused it but that doesn't render the technology itself useless or a scam.
- The_Colonel 4y ago
  I get your point, but ... > A blockchain powers Secure Scuttlebutt, Jami, Urbit I've honestly never heard about any of these. But I have heard/read about many other "uses" of blockchain, which ultimately boil down to scam. There are possible use cases, they just drown in the sea of scams.
- hiq 4y ago
  > A blockchain powers Secure Scuttlebutt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Scuttlebutt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Scuttlebutt doesn't have the word blockchain on it, and from reading the protocol section, I don't think it uses a public blockchain as defined there: https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2019/02/theres_no_good_reaso.html https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2019/02/theres_no_g... So you're just talking about something else, but as Schneier argues, anything other than a public blockchain is nothing new and has little to do with all the hype beyond the confusing names.
  - sdiacom 4y ago
    Per the Wikipedia article: > User content in SSB is organized as an append-only sequence of immutable messages, where messages cryptographically sign adjacent messages for the purpose of guaranteeing unforgeabilitity of the sequences as they are replicated to other peers. That's pretty much a blockchain. Of course, they don't call it a blockchain themselves, because the Scuttlebutt people are not running a grift, they're creating a communication protocol that happens to use cryptographic primitives similarly to how blockchains use them.
    - xigoi 4y ago
      Do the messages require computationally expensive proofs?
      - sdiacom 4y ago
        Thankfully, no. I don't think that's a requirement for a blockchain, though.
bartread 4y ago
> Because there are no use cases for blockchains. I think this is it or, at least, to moderate slightly, there are few valid use cases for blockchain. The top comment, from Theo Jackson, captures it really well: "Please don’t. If there is a requested feature that _requires_ blockchain I’d be interested, but “possible ways to combine LibreOffice with blockchain technologies” sounds like a solution in search of a problem." What are the actual problems LibreOffice are trying to solve here? It just feels like this post dropped in from 4 years ago where everyone seemed to be trying to shoehorn blockchain into everything with no clear idea of what they were actually trying to achieve. And then there's the fact that many blockchain implementations have an absolutely horrendous energy requirement. It was always odious (or at least from about 2013 onwards) but, in 2022, in the midst of an energy crisis and rising prices, it's both ethically and environmentally indefensible. I know that Ethereum has been working to address this but the reality is that for many extant cases blockchain is horrifically compute intensive and inefficient.
- web3isgoing 4y ago
  Ethereum energy consumption is now negligible: https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption
  - xigoi 4y ago
    …due to proof of stake, which requires cryptocurrency. So much for “it has nothing to do with cryptocurrency”.
azangru 4y ago
> Because there are no use cases for blockchains. Someone in the comments on LibreOffice blog expressed the same opinion. Which surprised me. Has the consensus been reached among the serious non-grifting public that blockchains are useless to represent peer-to-peer trustless money? Has bitcoin been declared a failure?
- xigoi 4y ago
  Bitcoin is wasting humongous amounts of energy during a climate and energy crisis, which makes it morally unacceptable.
  - fsflover 4y ago
    Banks also require a lot of energy.
    - DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
      And so does heating swimming pools, baking bread and enjoying one's night at the movie theater, none of which excuses or justifies wasting energy for whatever real or imagined purpose.
    - xigoi 4y ago
      Not nearly as much.
  - azangru 4y ago
    That's not the argument the parent is making. They say, no use cases.
- soco 4y ago
  I'm not sure how a word processor uses peer-to-peer trustless money. The discussion shouldn't even be about crypto and blockchains, but about how crypto and blockchain can benefit LibreOffice. Given we cannot identify how crypto and blockchain can benefit anybody (well, except scammers and those 11 folks who actually transferred assets to third world countries) I believe the topic should have quickly died off but yeah...

sdiacom 4y ago

Good. The mere mention of "combining existing successful open-source product with blockchain" should get about the same reaction as "combining fruit bowls with metal spikes". This is a good thing, it means that people are waking up to what crypto actually is. There is no successful or interesting combination of "useful thing" and "blockchain", unless your definition of success is siphoning money from technologically illiterate people to grifters' pockets. It's evident that the person who wrote the blog post does not understand that they're being approached by grifters, who want to use their existing brand goodwill to expand their grift's outreach. Being approached by the Ethereum foundation should be treated like cold emails asking if you'd like to put a link to a casino in your website. I'm glad that the community was able to clarify this for them.

Brian_K_White 4y ago
You just exemplified their point. original post: we're not talking about crypto comment: they're not talking about crypto but people still just say "F them crypto is bad!" this comment: F them because crypto is bad! Crypto (money, nfts) is bad, I think smart contracts are a mistake too, and I don't think LO needs blockchain either, but the objection is more like the one someone else said about, if there's some feature that needs it, fine, but don't just look for some excuse to use a solution with no problem. But also it would be absurd to say that cryptography, authentication, and povenence have no valid application with documents.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  Context matters. This wasn’t LibreOffice talking to a researcher. It was a conversation started by the Ethereum folks. They’re crypto.
- dhdgrygev 4y ago
  There are no real world use cases of blockchain tech besides crypto. Or can you demonstrate one?
  - zimpenfish 4y ago

Sakos 4y ago

I'm open to the idea that blockchain might somehow be useful for something somehow in the future. I don't see what LibreOffice could gain from blockchain. I also think it's telling that they'd rather ignore the negative feedback because they want to apparently continue on this path than actually recognize that people don't want blockchain garbage ruining what's otherwise a good project. I'm looking forward to the next post in 6-12 months where they talk about all the "awesome" plans they have with blockchain and they'll have the comments locked from the beginning. Oh, and not to forget the ensuing fork because honestly, we just want a word processor that doesn't suck and isn't proprietary.

ekianjo 4y ago
> I'm open to the idea that blockchain might somehow be useful for something somehow in the future. I don't see what LibreOffice could gain from blockchain. It's not because you can't imagine anything that nobody else can.
mavhc 4y ago
Why shouldn't you ignore feedback that's ill informed, reactionary, or just wrong?
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  Maybe because it's coming from the people who read your blog and use your software?
  - mavhc 4y ago
    Most of your users are idiots though, they'll just ask for a faster horse
    - DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
      Aren't you the guy who tried to sell a faster blockchain to me last week so I can keep better track of all the horses in my stable?

willeh 4y ago

It is not insane, far too many orgs are asking how can we shoehorn blockchain into X. The end-result is usually some vaporware, some weird commercialisation, or outright fraud. Libreoffice is a foundation, it should act in accordance with its charter. The public, likewise, should hold its officers accountable for acting in a way best serves these ends.

belter 4y ago

Maybe because nobody else has seen other use than shitcoins. Arguing this is not about crypto, but blockchain, when nobody has seen other use cases is the disingenuous part of all this.

forgotpwd16 4y ago

>even if it's a note that "We had a chat with Eth Foundation" That's how it starts everytime. "We're just talking about it" ends up in shoving blockchains where they aren't needed.

nkrisc 4y ago

The post itself is bizarre. Imagine they had said: "we had a discussion with Denuvo about DRM (We’re not talking about putting DRM into LibreOffice!). In what ways could people find a combination of LibreOffice Technology and DRM be useful?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo I'm not trying to equate blockchain and DRM. The big question lingering over their post is "why?" From what I can see the essence of the reaction is towards the fact they appear to be in search of a problem for their shiny solution. Maybe they find a real problem, but usually you don't have your solution before you find it.