[RL_Quine]

The website linked, and it's associated information all absolutely scream red flags and is functionally similar to a hoard of other schemes. It's a technically simple product (distribute binaries from a webserver) with a completely arbitrary cryptocurrency stuffed onto the side, allowing for bombastic, buzzword filled claims which just defy reality. It attempts to promote itself by driving users who will get some form of profit sharing as part of their participation, promising some sort of rewards paid by the creator.

> Package maintainers will publish their releases to a decentralized registry powered by a Byzantine fault-tolerant blockchain to eliminate single sources of failure, provide immutable releases, and allow communities to govern their regions of the open-source ecosystem, independent of external agendas.

It's existence is an attempt to justify the creation of yet another cryptocurrency, not as a serious solution to any problem that exists in distributing software.

[febeling]

Is the fact that many maintainers burn out and earn no money and little recognition not a serious problem?

[duskwuff]

That isn't a fact.

Keep in mind that this scheme wouldn't reward the authors of software -- it rewards the people who create and upload packages. Those usually aren't the same people, and the maintainers that are most subject to burnout are the authors, not the packagers.

It also appears to require those developers to purchase (or otherwise acquire) tokens before adding software to the packaging system.

[shepherdjerred]

> Keep in mind that this scheme wouldn't reward the authors of software -- it rewards the people who create and upload packages. Those usually aren't the same people, and the maintainers that are most subject to burnout are the authors, not the packagers.

It creates an incentive to package software for the ecosystem, which is a pretty good goal to achieve for a package manager -- especially a brand new one where it would be hard to gain traction without a large number of packages.

[assbuttbuttass]

I see that as mainly a social problem, not a technical one.

I've noticed that a lot of crypto enthusiasts tend to reach for technical solutions without understanding the social causes of the problem in the first place

[Finnucane]

This will pay them in quatloos, not money.

[febeling]

Many people will get some satisfaction out of it, if they only receive points or badges. Look at Stackoverflow or GH stars.

[giaour]

Those people are already getting paid in GitHub stars. Adding United Fruit Company dollars to the mix doesn’t make the compensation any more real.

What money will be entering this ecosystem? Absent funds flowing in, how will package maintainers be able to convert their tea bucks to something they can pay rent with?

[giantrobot]

Yeah those GitHub stars really help with burnout. When you're wading through a hundred pointless PRs of people trying to pad their contribution stats, those GitHub stars just release all the tension.

[Barrin92]

yes indeed, which is why it deserves a serious solution and not this.

[moritonal]

I think a bias against crypto is clouding your argument. Reading the whitepaper makes me wish Bitcoin had never existed, given I imagine plenty of people would apploud many of the ideas in it.

With all the flaws of npm, people do want to be able to have a immutable, mirrorable package-repository with a trust framework they can independently confirm. This does that, along with clever extras like "tasters" who stake a certain amount of value before confirming a package does x.

It's.. sad, that any tech that uses blockchain is now doomed to flag-death because of everything. I get it, but can't help but wonder how I'd have felt reading this paper 10 years ago.