[zapf]

Wish we could stop using such msft run nonsense, and build a p2p decentralised PR system. What's the challenges we need to address to make it happen?

[sodality2]

> p2p decentralised PR system

My first thought was https://radicle.xyz/.

What a cruel twist of fate. Their downloads page is hosted on Github Pages, which is down right now! https://radicle.xyz/downloads.html

In any other situation I'd recommend it since it really was the tool of choice for decentralized git repos with lots of cool features. (Despite the "Empowering developers with DeFi building blocks like NFTs, token streams, and more" mentioned on the home page which throws me off)

Edit: It seems like the download page is up and working now.

[dataflow]

> What's the challenges we need to address to make it happen?

I imagine the ability to resist $billion offers when you're successful would be one.

[gnubison]

Hmm, great idea. We could build on Git as a storage medium, and we'd need a durable and reliable way to exchange patches. Something like ...email?

    $ man -k patches
    git-am(1) - Apply a series of patches from a mailbox
    git-format-patch(1) - Prepare patches for e-mail submission
    git-imap-send(1) - Send a collection of patches from stdin to an IMAP folder
    git-send-email(1) - Send a collection of patches as emails

Ironic that you're pondering Git as a solution to Github's self-created centralization problem.

[pshc]

I think they're talking more about the Pull Request interface with nice diffs, comments, automated tests and builders, status checks and so on...

You totally could develop in the kernel workflow, everything done over email, but are you willing to?

[gnubison]

Yes :)

[pshc]

That would be great. But Github is a massive coordination point with network effects and free tiers so it's not so easy to compete. Some other challenges:

- despite being decentralized, you still need moderation and access control

- open source projects typically aren't great at frontend UI/UX

It would be neat if I could publish git repos on IPFS and receive patches from people. It's just hard to compete with a centralized, CDN'd service where you can click and get a result in 100ms.

edit: cribbing from sibling comment, it looks like Radicle has thought hard about decentralized git: https://radicle.xyz/blog/radicle-link.html

[vimda]

> p2p decentralised pr system

You mean Git? The Linux Kernel for e.g. does this just fine.

[zapf]

Yup. Can we build the same for less "power users"?

- A single startup file that starts up gitserver, a p2p node to enable repo discovery and submission of PRs.

- A web/electrum client that provides PR merge interface, and links to forks.

- user ids are their public keys, with non-unique nicks. There will only usually be one "jungly" on a repo.

We DO NOT need a blockchain for this. All those ethereum projects are messing things up by introducing an unnecessary coin that we really don't need.