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by mr_sturd 3695 days ago
Good luck with this, I'm really excited to give it a go.

You say that Akasha "doesn't need any servers". If a user is to run a "node" on their PC, how will the network react if a friend/follower is offline when data is requested from them. Also, will a node be runnable on a home server system, allowing for higher-availability and easier backups of personal data?
2 comments
MihaiAlisie 3695 days ago
First of all thanks for the encouraging words!

> If a user is to run a "node" on their PC, how will the network react if a friend/follower is offline when data is requested from them.

There are some things currently in development such as IPFS clusters that can tackle this issue. There's also the IPFS filecoin token (not yet live) which would provide an incentive for people to keep the hash "alive". This is similar to how Ethereum's Swarm will work.

In the meantime the gateways mentioned in a comment bellow would act as a sort of "seed" even if the OP goes offline.

> will a node be runnable on a home server system, allowing for higher-availability and easier backups of personal data?

I don't see why not. Remains to be tested though :)

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hosh 3695 days ago
@mr_stud the functionality you are asking about is addressed by IPFS. I worked on the project briefly about a year ago -- exciting stuff. IPFS's content distribution is similar to that of a torrent. So the content gets stored across the network, with certain concentrations where people can pin it. It leaves room for giving an economic incentive for pinning it. Cost of storage shifts over to the people who care about the content rather than the people who care about it's distribution.

There still would be a case where a friend's content is unavailable because it is offline. If the friend is offline too much, one way is to have an intermediary willing to pin the content when that friend comes briefly online. It may be possible if the friend is within a large enough group, there will always be some sort of coverage.

Check out the IPFS website sometime. There is a white paper and demo videos.

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mr_sturd 3695 days ago
IPFS is largely the reason for me battering F5, on this thread, this afternoon.

I've only briefly looked into it, on its website, upon originally reading about it. I will definitely give it more attention, have a deeper read, and have a go at running an instance to see what can be done.

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