this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

To be fair that would not necessarily be because of the blockchain part, more because of the decentralized/federated nature of this theorical network

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sure, but the networking and consent-finding are defining features of a blockchain. Nobody calls a git repo a blockchain.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

You mean a "github repo". Git by itself doesn't give a hoot about validating authors what-so-ever (I could sign as "Bill Gates [email protected]", and git would happily accept the commit), and it's not federated (multiple people manually downloading various states of the repo at various times doesn't count).

Github ensures owners are who they are, as linked to their profile (though email validation only goes as far as "Well, they clicked the link in the email, so this must be their email account"). Github also isn't federated, since that one site going down takes all the repos with it (unless someone had it cloned, but again, random people downloading at random times yields different states of the repo, depending on when the clone/fetch occured, but then you'd end up with tens/hundreds/thousands of sources of various levels of truth).

[–] whostosay 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's not a minor nitpick. The comment was that "nobody calls a git repo a blockchain". It's because it's not a blockchain, or even remotely similar to one.

[–] whostosay 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You are right, I was just poking fun a little. No hard feelings. You did just kind of um akshually my use of um akshually tho

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

No worries. I just correct people on it because it's caused problems at work before. It's a pain when people think that git automatically means github, and they start complaining about cost, and Microsoft feeding their AI, and setting up user accounts, and etc etc etc.

I'm like... dude, I just want to sync the code from a central server, we can do it in house for free in 5 minutes...

[–] Valmond 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Github is a website, controlled by no less than Microsoft lol.

A git repo can be spread out like a "blockchain" without the messy validation and coin earnings, maybe that was the intended comparison?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Could it be? Sure, I don't see a technological reason why someone couldn't build a system like that.

Are they now (federated, or blockchained)? No.

[–] Valmond 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

True.

I'm working on a decentralised sharing protocol, but it uses reciprocal sharing so you'd have to have large storage anyways.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Hoof, yeah. Collaboration tools always seem to come down to bandwidth, storage, or both.

[–] Valmond 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

You need to use something I guess :-) Any examples?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Honestly, despite not actually being federated, I've been using raw Git a lot recently. As opposed to ActivityPub, you can always download the current state lf the central repo and bring yourself up to current. I just wish it were easier to store binary data in it (e.g. sharing my MP3s between my laptop and phone)

Of course, that's not a collaborative use-case. I have no intention of opening my files to the world. Just noting that ActivityPub has some pretty severe limitations (if my mbin server is offline, I wont get the updates I missed while it was down, ever. And if I can't process messages in real-time, I miss those too).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Honestly, despite not actually being federated, I've been using raw Git a lot recently. As opposed to ActivityPub, you can always download the current state lf the central repo and bring yourself up to current. I just wish it were easier to store binary data in it (e.g. sharing my MP3s between my laptop and phone)

Of course, that's not a collaborative use-case. I have no intention of opening my files to the world. Just noting that ActivityPub has some pretty severe limitations (if my mbin server is offline, I wont get the updates I missed while it was down, ever. And if I can't process messages in real-time, I miss those too).