6 ms·

Darwin: A framework for evolving decentralized web apps

77 points by k__ 3y ago

northisup 3y ago
going out on a limb here, but i _think_ there is already a really popular project named darwin, maybe for, like, SEO or something, a different name?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- viraptor 3y ago
  There's quite a few Darwin projects. Including the MacOS kernel. Yeah, the naming is not amazing.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    Survival of the fittest "Darwin" project?
    - throwaway4837 3y ago
      Only if they all were competing in the same market. Since they aren't, I like to think of it more as them competing for which one becomes the base meme. When people think of "dog" which variant do they imagine? Lab, husky, french bulldog, or something else? Which dog type "won" and created the strongest meme?
      - xeonmc 3y ago
        > Which dog type "won" and created the strongest meme? Doge?
      - djbusby 3y ago
        Yo quero taco bell dog.
      - soraminazuki 3y ago
        They're both software, so it's still confusing for the rest of us. Would you still stick with that reasoning if it was named "Linux" instead?
  - biomcgary 3y ago
    Maybe they should switch to "Alfred" or "Wallace". e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace
    - nor-and-or-not 3y ago
      Alfred is a quite well-known macOS app (alfredapp.com)
      - EGreg 3y ago
        Wallace is already a crypto wallet https://play.google.com/store/apps/details https://play.google.com/store/apps/details
theogravity 3y ago
Let's say n developers create their own fork of a Darwin app and build features that the community deem equally important. How does the "default/selected version" as described in the document work? Somehow implement a merge capability?
- codetrotter 3y ago
  Presumably some developer would be incentivised by the minting of additional tokens, to take those multiple desired other versions, and merge them and present the merged version as something people can use. Wonder how that affects the amount of token that the devs of each of those individual features get. Do the devs of the features even get anything at all in that case, or does the guy that put together the merged work get all of the tokens.
PrimeMcFly 3y ago
I'm not sure web3 is going to be adopted more than it already has, so I wonder about the longevity of projects like this.
fabiofzero 3y ago
Web3 is dead. Please stop.
- alphanullmeric 3y ago
  “Nobody uses crypto!” - people trying to make the use of crypto illegal
  - gotimo 3y ago
    "Use crypto!" - bag-holders with a financial interest in crypto being used
    - alphanullmeric 3y ago
      You’re free to use whatever you want, this discussion is about whether you can ban others from doing the same.
      - gotimo 3y ago
        as far as i can tell very few people want cryptocurrency to be illegal. what people do advocate for is KYC practices at crypto exchanges to protect customers from fraud.
        alphanullmeric 3y ago
        ie. the patriot act argument. I don’t support the redistribution of consequences. Individuals can decide what risks they want to take, including whether they want a KYC exchange or not. If that works out poorly for them, that’s too bad. You’re not held responsible for their losses so you don’t get a say in how they choose to use their own money.
- xk_id 3y ago
  Just for the sake of clarity in communication, OP has chosen to define “death” as $1.72 billion of on-chain transaction volume in the last 24h [0] [0] https://defillama.com/dexs https://defillama.com/dexs
jerojero 3y ago
If the problem is that users using an app that's supposed to be, by it's governance structure, decentralized but in practice it's still centralised and this is the primary reason why changes aren't implemented/pushed through. I think it's more reasonable to think about solutions to the governance problem itself. Imo, thinking a plutocratic structure would ever bring forth power decentralisation is foolish to begin with. Voting with your wallet makes sense if everyone has the same amount, it doesn't make sense if over time resources get concentrated in the hands of the few which in turn use this power to concentrate power even more. In reality, there's a lot of much simpler methods of governance that could be implemented for these projects. Starting with sortition, the formation of assemblies, working cohorts, etc (all through sortition). This would ensure a much more equitable access that wouldn't really take away from effectiveness (at least the sortition experiments done at town, city and country level haven't shown less quality in the public proposals that come out them). But honestly, I don't think people in the crypto space truly want effective decentralized structures. I think the do "democratic washing" if you can put it in some way. There's a lot of incompatible ideas in the space. So, a project like this looks to me to be trying to solve a problem they themselves have created out of stubbornness. If you want dynamic governance in the space then sortition is probably a much better way to go around things rather than "darwinian evolution". Change should be commanded by users of the system and implemented by developers. Not spear headed by developers and adopted by the users. This second one leads to a lot of wasted effort.
- RobotToaster 3y ago
  Wouldn't sortition be game-able by creating a lot of wallets with tiny amounts in?
  - nlittlepoole 3y ago
    You need a viable Proof of Human/Personhood system and afaik one does not yet exist.
    - littlestymaar 3y ago
      It's called an ID card / SSN.
jrm4 3y ago
Going to do y'all a favor and explain EXACTLY why this (and most DAO-like thingies) are goofy. The issue is trust. What you're trying to do is to encode trust and incentives among human beings, and it's far easier to do that WITHOUT complicating it via code.
- SagatPetchy 3y ago
  I thought crypto was about solving a LACK of trust?
  - jrm4 3y ago
    Correct. Crypto is. Money is an arguably good use case for "crypto-related tech."(lol, by definition, right?) DAOs and such are hamfisted attempts to slap crypto-tech on things that AREN'T suited for it.
- ETH_start 3y ago
  Crypto is about trusting the validity of code over the integrity of people. There is a bit more to it than that, in trusting that micro-economic incentives and the design of the protocol will guard the protocol against capture, but that's the gist of it. Ultimately, open source code has a higher safety potential than the integrity of individuals, so I believe static services will trend toward becoming Ethereum protocols.
  - jrm4 3y ago
    I agree, but those cases are VERY LIMITED. They would have to be something where the slowness and clunkiness of a blockchain is worth it. Anything private and small? Blockchains are stupid there.
    - ETH_start 3y ago
      The integrity of finance is worth slowness and clunkiness.
EGreg 3y ago
I for one welcome innovation in this area. But how to increase app security?
beders 3y ago
How many different versions of something like a twitter-clone (as an example) are users willing to try? Buttons moving around, functionality changed or maybe even lost because the majority of the users don't want an edit button? I highly doubt this is a viable approach.
- dainiusse 3y ago
  Threads :)
janandonly 3y ago
Another attempt to shill more and more tokens. What is wrong with open and simple protocols, like NOSTR? Thanks to the different NIPs (NOSTR Improvement Proposals) [1] any client can choose to support or ignore anything that another has bolted on. And incentives for developers, you ask? If your client or relay is truly better than the competition, then users want to use your software/Webapp. They will not mind paying a small fee to use it, which has been possible for years by using value4value-like systems. [2] [1] https://binayatripathi-1.gitbook.io/stacks-+-nostr/sip-and-nip-summaries/nip-summaries/nip-1 https://binayatripathi-1.gitbook.io/stacks-+-nostr/sip-and-n... [2] https://9to5mac.com/2022/06/26/podcasting-2-0/ https://9to5mac.com/2022/06/26/podcasting-2-0/
- RobotToaster 3y ago
  Isn't nostr just clients connecting to multiple servers? With no communication between servers?
  - leesalminen 3y ago
    This is correct.
- chriswarbo 3y ago
  Sounds quite similar to XMPP. I used that to build some simple microblogging servers about a decade ago; I also used it for identi.ca and Twitter too (via gateways).
kyle-rb 3y ago
So forks are selected by users, via whoever gets the most stamps. As a user I'd have to: 1. Seek out forks of the app that I use and try them out. 2. Check to make sure there aren't any bugs introduced in the fork. 3. Check to make sure the author didn't introduce a subtle backdoor into the system allowing them to e.g. mint infinite tokens. 4. Check how many tokens the developer minted themselves as the reward for this work, to make sure it's not too many. (Do I actually care?) Hope the majority of users are paying this much attention!
sanitycheck 3y ago
[Ctrl-F]token[Ctrl-F4]

77 points by k__ 3y ago

going out on a limb here, but i _think_ there is already a really popular project named darwin, maybe for, like, SEO or something, a different name?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
viraptor 3y ago
There's quite a few Darwin projects. Including the MacOS kernel. Yeah, the naming is not amazing.
- lapcat 3y ago
  Survival of the fittest "Darwin" project?
  - throwaway4837 3y ago
    Only if they all were competing in the same market. Since they aren't, I like to think of it more as them competing for which one becomes the base meme. When people think of "dog" which variant do they imagine? Lab, husky, french bulldog, or something else? Which dog type "won" and created the strongest meme?
    - xeonmc 3y ago
      > Which dog type "won" and created the strongest meme? Doge?
    - djbusby 3y ago
      Yo quero taco bell dog.
    - soraminazuki 3y ago
      They're both software, so it's still confusing for the rest of us. Would you still stick with that reasoning if it was named "Linux" instead?
- biomcgary 3y ago
  Maybe they should switch to "Alfred" or "Wallace". e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace
  - nor-and-or-not 3y ago
    Alfred is a quite well-known macOS app (alfredapp.com)
    - EGreg 3y ago
      Wallace is already a crypto wallet https://play.google.com/store/apps/details https://play.google.com/store/apps/details

theogravity 3y ago

Let's say n developers create their own fork of a Darwin app and build features that the community deem equally important. How does the "default/selected version" as described in the document work? Somehow implement a merge capability?

codetrotter 3y ago
Presumably some developer would be incentivised by the minting of additional tokens, to take those multiple desired other versions, and merge them and present the merged version as something people can use. Wonder how that affects the amount of token that the devs of each of those individual features get. Do the devs of the features even get anything at all in that case, or does the guy that put together the merged work get all of the tokens.

PrimeMcFly 3y ago

I'm not sure web3 is going to be adopted more than it already has, so I wonder about the longevity of projects like this.

fabiofzero 3y ago

Web3 is dead. Please stop.

alphanullmeric 3y ago
“Nobody uses crypto!” - people trying to make the use of crypto illegal
- gotimo 3y ago
  "Use crypto!" - bag-holders with a financial interest in crypto being used
  - alphanullmeric 3y ago
    You’re free to use whatever you want, this discussion is about whether you can ban others from doing the same.
    - gotimo 3y ago
      as far as i can tell very few people want cryptocurrency to be illegal. what people do advocate for is KYC practices at crypto exchanges to protect customers from fraud.
      - alphanullmeric 3y ago
        ie. the patriot act argument. I don’t support the redistribution of consequences. Individuals can decide what risks they want to take, including whether they want a KYC exchange or not. If that works out poorly for them, that’s too bad. You’re not held responsible for their losses so you don’t get a say in how they choose to use their own money.
xk_id 3y ago
Just for the sake of clarity in communication, OP has chosen to define “death” as $1.72 billion of on-chain transaction volume in the last 24h [0] [0] https://defillama.com/dexs https://defillama.com/dexs

jerojero 3y ago

If the problem is that users using an app that's supposed to be, by it's governance structure, decentralized but in practice it's still centralised and this is the primary reason why changes aren't implemented/pushed through. I think it's more reasonable to think about solutions to the governance problem itself. Imo, thinking a plutocratic structure would ever bring forth power decentralisation is foolish to begin with. Voting with your wallet makes sense if everyone has the same amount, it doesn't make sense if over time resources get concentrated in the hands of the few which in turn use this power to concentrate power even more. In reality, there's a lot of much simpler methods of governance that could be implemented for these projects. Starting with sortition, the formation of assemblies, working cohorts, etc (all through sortition). This would ensure a much more equitable access that wouldn't really take away from effectiveness (at least the sortition experiments done at town, city and country level haven't shown less quality in the public proposals that come out them). But honestly, I don't think people in the crypto space truly want effective decentralized structures. I think the do "democratic washing" if you can put it in some way. There's a lot of incompatible ideas in the space. So, a project like this looks to me to be trying to solve a problem they themselves have created out of stubbornness. If you want dynamic governance in the space then sortition is probably a much better way to go around things rather than "darwinian evolution". Change should be commanded by users of the system and implemented by developers. Not spear headed by developers and adopted by the users. This second one leads to a lot of wasted effort.

RobotToaster 3y ago
Wouldn't sortition be game-able by creating a lot of wallets with tiny amounts in?
- nlittlepoole 3y ago
  You need a viable Proof of Human/Personhood system and afaik one does not yet exist.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    It's called an ID card / SSN.

jrm4 3y ago

Going to do y'all a favor and explain EXACTLY why this (and most DAO-like thingies) are goofy. The issue is trust. What you're trying to do is to encode trust and incentives among human beings, and it's far easier to do that WITHOUT complicating it via code.

SagatPetchy 3y ago
I thought crypto was about solving a LACK of trust?
- jrm4 3y ago
  Correct. Crypto is. Money is an arguably good use case for "crypto-related tech."(lol, by definition, right?) DAOs and such are hamfisted attempts to slap crypto-tech on things that AREN'T suited for it.
ETH_start 3y ago
Crypto is about trusting the validity of code over the integrity of people. There is a bit more to it than that, in trusting that micro-economic incentives and the design of the protocol will guard the protocol against capture, but that's the gist of it. Ultimately, open source code has a higher safety potential than the integrity of individuals, so I believe static services will trend toward becoming Ethereum protocols.
- jrm4 3y ago
  I agree, but those cases are VERY LIMITED. They would have to be something where the slowness and clunkiness of a blockchain is worth it. Anything private and small? Blockchains are stupid there.
  - ETH_start 3y ago
    The integrity of finance is worth slowness and clunkiness.

EGreg 3y ago

I for one welcome innovation in this area. But how to increase app security?

beders 3y ago

How many different versions of something like a twitter-clone (as an example) are users willing to try? Buttons moving around, functionality changed or maybe even lost because the majority of the users don't want an edit button? I highly doubt this is a viable approach.

dainiusse 3y ago
Threads :)

janandonly 3y ago

Another attempt to shill more and more tokens. What is wrong with open and simple protocols, like NOSTR? Thanks to the different NIPs (NOSTR Improvement Proposals) [1] any client can choose to support or ignore anything that another has bolted on. And incentives for developers, you ask? If your client or relay is truly better than the competition, then users want to use your software/Webapp. They will not mind paying a small fee to use it, which has been possible for years by using value4value-like systems. [2] [1] https://binayatripathi-1.gitbook.io/stacks-+-nostr/sip-and-nip-summaries/nip-summaries/nip-1 https://binayatripathi-1.gitbook.io/stacks-+-nostr/sip-and-n... [2] https://9to5mac.com/2022/06/26/podcasting-2-0/ https://9to5mac.com/2022/06/26/podcasting-2-0/

RobotToaster 3y ago
Isn't nostr just clients connecting to multiple servers? With no communication between servers?
- leesalminen 3y ago
  This is correct.
chriswarbo 3y ago
Sounds quite similar to XMPP. I used that to build some simple microblogging servers about a decade ago; I also used it for identi.ca and Twitter too (via gateways).

kyle-rb 3y ago

So forks are selected by users, via whoever gets the most stamps. As a user I'd have to: 1. Seek out forks of the app that I use and try them out. 2. Check to make sure there aren't any bugs introduced in the fork. 3. Check to make sure the author didn't introduce a subtle backdoor into the system allowing them to e.g. mint infinite tokens. 4. Check how many tokens the developer minted themselves as the reward for this work, to make sure it's not too many. (Do I actually care?) Hope the majority of users are paying this much attention!

sanitycheck 3y ago

[Ctrl-F]token[Ctrl-F4]