Website & community to promote true P2P applications
The goal of this project is to create a review-type website, similar to PortableApps.com, but instead of apps that are merely portable, these apps are fully decentralized via peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture, capable of forming a full network with the downloads listed on the site and nothing else.
There will be no altcoin-only projects allowed. Each project must primarily employ Bitcoin or have no associated tokens at all.
Starting source for finding truly P2P apps: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Category:P2P_Infrastructure#Top_Projects_at_this_moment - Of course they won't all meet our criteria.
Note: This project will run on donations alone, for my upkeep over time, but still be fully open source.
All apps listed are carefully vetted to ensure they follows certain rules. Each project must be:
I. Uncensorable: Fully P2P, meaning no federations, masternodes, central coordinators nor central escrow. Every node runs the same software as every other node on the network.
II. Trustworthy: Fully Open Source, which assumes every line of the code of every node is open to all to see. It must be assumed that as soon as Open Source development is compromised, it’s only a matter of time until it’s no longer decentralized. For this reason plans should be in place for governance of the project to be open or decentralized as well.
III. Permissionless: Accessible to absolutely everyone. If there are no Iranians, Venezuelans, and North Koreans using this software then it is a failure. Projects must be available for download through TOR and VPNs, making it as widely available as possible.
IV. Free-Speech aligned: Supportive of free speech. No one in the app can unilaterally censor the speech of anyone else. Voting and paying for placement is fine, as long as it’s a fair market. Moderation powers can not be given to anyone, not even to a democratically-voted group of users. A preferred alternative is Gab’s style of self-curation.
V. Bitcoin-Aligned: Free from involuntary altcoins. Unfortunately we have to fight off an infestation of altcoins trying to compete with Bitcoin by attaching themselves to a P2P project. that Bitcoin could do just as well. (EX: Steem, Storj, BAT, & BTT) The devs that issue these tokens get rich, typically from holding onto some of the issuance. (Test: Could a market using bitcoin fulfill the same function in that project?) So any token attached to a P2P project that is required for the use of that project must be considered a scam and will one day be replaced by a forked version that employs Bitcoin instead. Exceptions can be made if the token isn’t required and didn’t make the developers money. Example: Bisq token
The categories can grow all the time but here are some likely first-string application categories:
- Web (including TOR)
- Money
- Marketplaces
- Merchant Platforms
- Data Sharing
- Data Storage
- Chat/Messaging
- Social Networks & Publishing
- Search
- Hardware
- Meshnet
I'll be providing reviews on all projects, but a forum for further discussion on each would be great. Supplying a tweet feed stream from each project's dev team on its review page will be very useful and provide the site with updated content.
Eventually there could even be a type of unified runtime environment, or launcher like PortableApps has as well… A single environment to launch all user-selected P2P apps from or within, together. The UI will take some creativity. I’ll have to get some volunteers to code such a thing but I can handle the website myself.
An eventual goal for the overall P2P community is to get all the devs of all these reveiewed projects to share a common P2P identity solution... One login (and private key) to enter all apps. Who knows which solution that will be; could be decades off.