and we're here to discuss a little bit
today well show you a little bit of what
we've been working on in kind of a fun
little new tool that hopefully will be
helpful to the community but also we
really just wanted to talk about some of
the thought process that we're going
through and what it really means to be
creating the kind of decentralized
quote-unquote applications and that it's
not just about the types of networks
that we're building but about the entire
type of architecture that we're using
and also the processes that we use to
create and manage and maintain and
extend these kinds of networks so what
are we trying to do here are we really
trying to drive adoption of a specific
protocol if we're all here because we
all agree that we like one kind of
protocol does how does that incentivize
us to act differently when new things
come out do we really want to
decentralize all the things and put
everything on the blockchain probably
not hopefully not if you're in the back
you might not be able to see what I hope
we're actually working on which is
building applications that challenge
systemic power structures empower humans
and foster consent and honestly I don't
really care how we get there so hence
the weber next I'm wearing my webbernet
shirt today so who can tell me the
difference between web 3 web 3.0 the
decentralized web D webs daps replicated
the state machines you had nobody knows
so that's why I just I was like I I
can't rationalize all these different
definitions I'm just gonna call it the
Weber next we're on the webbernet now
next would be the Weber next that's fine
and what that means to me is a couple
things we're trying to build
applications where data can be kept
close to its point of origin Trust is
not required for most tasks the low
level protocols might be censorship
resistant applications may or may not be
you know principles of least privilege
throughout the process there's data
portability there's client
interoperability there's maybe a
blockchain where it's helpful and not
where it's not helpful and user
experience rivals or exceeds the current
web we need to be able to challenge the
existing business models that have made
the centralized web so powerful and
figure out how we can achieve the goals
that were looking for so if you saw
Patrick at web 3 so we tried to drive
adoption of a specific protocol no we
are building applications that challenge
systemic power structures and power
humans and
or consent hence the Weber next thank
you okay
so there's some things that the Weber
nuts can do for you and here is the way
that we're thinking through
decentralized architectures and you
might have heard this at web three
summit or a crypto Spring as I kind of
went through it but the point being that
maybe what's that it's I don't know what
does that say can you Center it can you
enhance them enhance zoom that's
optional oh why is that it turns
out that black trains are haven't been
around that long and peer-to-peer
systems have been around for three
decades and there are plenty of useful
tools out there that people aren't using
and if we just keep going lalala we're
we're here to do blockchain stuff we
fail to learn the lessons that those
projects have learned and have tried but
not succeeded in overcoming to become
used as alternatives to decentralized
things so I think we need to be a little
more test ourselves a little more and
say blockchain is not really the answer
unless it solves a specific problem for
this but we do have there it's it's hard
to do things which are not centralized
indeed so at every layer of the stack
though there's this potential for points
of power aggregation and for what I
would consider to be kind of soft
centralization to happen and things that
we didn't really necessarily intend to
happen and things that you can't
necessarily code away at the protocol
level so for example if all of a sudden
all of the research money is going to
SGX and it turns out that everyone likes
that as a privacy solution and people
just happen to converge which if you're
a fancy tech bro we would call a
shilling point but otherwise we might
just call a lot of people doing a common
thing then maybe SGX becomes a point of
centralization which involves corporate
interests etc so do you do we need to
guard against that maybe not there's
there's no reason that we need to max
out skill points into centralization for
everything the point is simply to be
aware of how the choices that we're
making now have long term impacts
similarly for heterogeneous cloud kind
of deployments of several these networks
if you're running some sort of
permission network
and it's within an entire single cloud
what's the long-term impact to that as
when it becomes a vendor sticky and it
becomes a cost control issue cetera so
I'm curious show of hands who in here
has heard of STX as a way to solve some
buck blockchain related problem all
right 30 30 % of people would it
surprise you to learn that STX has won
signing key for all chips in the world
and it's owned by Intel ok so right so
what are we working at a cleaver so the
product with that it's under development
right now is our view and kind of our
pitch to to try to make this stuff more
relevant to normal humans but also
developers who come from both inside and
outside of the space so if you can see
on the screenshots we are starting off
with making it extremely easy to use the
software that you guys and everybody
else in the space has has made but again
it's not limited to blockchain software
it's not a kind of blockchain product
but we are trying to make blockchain
based stacks ones that are actually
being used to solve real problems
especially when it comes to businesses
and Renee was talking about you know how
this is basically not really used in any
meaningful way between public and and
the business fears yeah so we want to
help people build Weber next
applications basically and in doing that
we want to be able to dog food those who
same architectural choices that I was
just talking about and so how can we
create a business model that doesn't
require us to ask for people's login
information every step of the way
how can we make sure that things are
faster because they run locally than if
they were run via a centralized sass
service how can we make people not make
trade-offs and want to use this kind of
a toolset which right now yes is very
developer centric but longer-term is
hopefully for people in general yeah
this project is all local and there's no
logins everything you see even though it
looks like kind of a cloud launcher
thing it's actually just fully local I'm
just gonna show we're just gonna show
this quickly says it'll be fun the rates
are shilling point we did oh this is
ours
we're we're shilling this is the
shilling point portion of hashtag okay
thank you okay
so hopefully this is a useful tool so
solidity search so if you have ever
attempted to write some more contracts
in solidity you may have needed to stop
and go google a specific function to
find out what the inputs are so that you
could go back and make everything work
properly right and that takes a couple
seconds you have to go to google type
things in find the right thing click
through figure out if it's right right
okay yeah and it turns out you know a
big problem when you're developing
software and smart contracts is you keep
kind of forgetting what the definitions
are when you have types and named
arguments it actually there's a lot of
information communicated just in the
types of things and but probably most
people in here that are doing smart
contracts if they forget today they will
google that and then plus solidity and
maybe it will be the first result so we
thought we build a tool that let you
search api's in which every oldest
information is already encoded and allow
you to add kind of your own information
to this without it being needed to be
sent to any server anywhere or to clover
or anything like this so again this is
all running locally we provided a few
examples like open Zeppelin but you can
add your own if you want any IP the IP
is also searchable in here so a few
examples are try to try it burn so this
is an example of looking for every
function that is called burn so I can
see kind of which contracts in the space
that burn funds that's the kind of one
kind of search the other probably more
common search when you're developing
stuff is to type for example a RC xx I
remember you know some of the methods on
this but I don't remember exactly in
which way the arguments go you can just
see the whole interface for the contract
yeah so the second part here shows that
you can you can actually make one
solidity file import all the libraries
that you want to search in this way
and compile it well with the solidity
compiler and paste it in here again does
not leave your machine it just is parsed
by the page and add it to the index you
can also remove the things that we have
by defaults and use totally only your
own solidity api's and so that's at
clover app now and so it's uh this is
live now so if you want to check it out
it's clover dot app so that's fun okay
so now let's talk about some what
decentralization quote-unquote means
throughout the rest of the development
process and life cycle here so I I found
this white paper I just really enjoyed
this one for go chain I don't know if
you're familiar with this but it's it's
10x more decentralized and it's 100x
faster and a thousand X greener and it
sounds amazing and I was like how is it
so much more decentralized so then on
their FAQ it's like how can I become an
authoritative note in this amazing
decentralized network apply here to be
considered awesome great stuff so we're
not there's so many discussions about
that that's not what I'm talking about
here but you might have heard I guess a
couple months ago at this point when
Jackson Palmer and Emin Geun decided to
put together this are we decentralized
yet.com site and look at these various
metrics by which you could judge some of
these different cryptocurrency projects
and figure out which ones are the most
decentralized but the one that really
caught me I want to talk about any of
that point you can yell about it on
Twitter later but what caught me it was
the number of clients that are available
for these is not higher than 3 for any
and for most projects is one or two and
now we hear a lot of the time anybody
can make a client if you don't like it
just go build your own and there's
there's many Bitcoin clients and there
are actually several etherion clients as
well but if you look at the statistics
of how they're deployed over 95% of
nodes are running the same Bitcoin core
implementation and in aetherium it's
split between the guest and parity
versions to over 80 percents of the
network so it was just kind of
interesting trigger for us to say can we
look at some of the code itself and how
this is happening in the build process
because we keep saying decentralize the
development process as though there's
this unlimited Universal pool of
qualified open source developers who are
just waiting to be asked to contribute
something so
and the space tends to take a lot more
pride in being decentralized in
different metrics and and keeps kind of
holding it over each other when they
fail to meet some of those metrics yep
but yeah we poke at each other right so
you might have seen yesterday that the Z
Cash Foundation which is not the Z cash
company azúcar would like to remind you
and of which I am a board member on the
foundation so full disclosure
today is the single most important step
for robust and capture resistant
evolution of Z cash in the long run I
thought it was interesting the way that
he didn't say we want to decentralize Z
cash he was very specific in saying that
we want to make this a capture resistant
evolution wherein it's not just about
having two clients all a theory or a
guess and parity but it is about having
multiple clients which are also governed
by separate organizations and that's
cool so a cross guess if you look at the
the contributions and let me don't click
back at this point but if you go to
clover tap as well there's another app
that's down there that is called code
stats and you can look at all of the
underlying data for these and kind of
sort stuff and you can click
contributors and see the actual
libraries that they've contributed to so
some some people might actually work
more on importing existing projects or
databases into other blockchains as
opposed to say working on underlying
cryptographic primitives which is fine
we need all things some people do test
cases whatever but there's there's this
whole ego attached to what court devs
mean and it's kind of interesting to dig
into where the the code change and the
code progression comes from so Noah
court is somebody who changed to read me
in Bitcoin core a little bit okay so so
there's there's guest for you but I
noticed there's one two three four real
things that kind of names it hang out
there I'm there's parody okay maybe a
smidgen more but really I mean over half
half the code for sure is like three
people what about Bitcoin yeah you
notice there's an interesting trend here
most of these PI's are circles donuts
look look basically the same they have
one major contributor one pretty big one
and then a couple of semi-active ones
and then a bunch of people who have
contributed once or
changed a few things here and there and
I leave it as an exercise to the user to
aggravate or to map these verses Twitter
followers but it is not a direct inverse
relationship - similar now what I did
for Z cache also is I dipped out the
portion of the Bitcoin code base that
they had used so you can see the actual
Z cash portion there which those are
employees of the Z cache company doesn't
matter I don't know but we need to know
who's doing these things so so across
all of those and also just to note when
I did Bitcoin I threw lightning in there
as well so it kind of appears as an
additional client which kind of boosts
them a little bit so I think that across
Bitcoin and etherium Z cash even Cardo
know you're seeing like seven different
developer or there's seven developers
that would account for more than 60% of
the code so if you start from the top of
was the largest percent of change over
time which we is a touchy number but has
to do with insertions and deletions and
stuff not just over all random commits
that it only takes at maximum seven
people to have hit sixty percent of the
code so and those address the best ones
in the block transfers yeah now what
about other open source projects that
have nothing to do with do you
centralizing anything so it's it's a
little bit ironic that kubernetes and
react some of the most popular and some
of the most centralized or central
centralized origin in all of the world
and all of open source one coming from
Google obviously and one coming from
Facebook are far more decentralized in
terms of who contributes to the projects
and kind of where your risk points are
if somebody dies does the project die
kubernetes certainly not react has a few
major contributors but they don't really
any of them is not kind of deciding
anything so just kind of stood out that
kubernetes has absolutely nothing to do
with decentralization went vendor login
prevention sure but there's no there's
no kubernetes coin why is that they're
already decentralized yeah okay so
remember it's so it's not just about
who writes the code though and at risk
of doing analysis of code contributions
is an implicit agreement that only code
contribution matters and that is not the
case right so I wanted to think more
about how we get to that point where
code is created but after that how it
kind of leaves that that that mothership
and is distributed around the world and
becomes kind of installations that we
all use right so the process for this
could be initially we're thinking about
things we're coming up with ideas then
there's really design processes you're
writing specifications then you're doing
that build step that entire thing we
just talked about is really just the
build step then it's who has merged
mastery rights you know who's doing the
actual commits then you have how you get
the code out into the world and
distribute it in a push sense so that
would also include marketing how you let
people know that that product is there
for them and then how people come to you
and how they access it is it accessible
only via web browser do you have to have
a specific operating system what kind of
language is in is it available in where
in the world can you run these things
and then how is it deployed is it a SAS
thing that you could that you don't
control is it a local thing is it in the
cloud or not how is it running and then
how is that reporting happening and then
going back home right so how do we
handle bugs monitoring usage patterns
figuring out what we should build next
that's really it's a it's a long process
and it's not just the DevOps process
it's a full product lifecycle and and
you could have that same kind of soft
power aggregation at any of these points
right so if we talk about the the
brainstorming process and we the obvious
question is how many people contributed
ideas to this project right but maybe
some of the less obvious questions that
we should be asking as we go through
this are things like how are new ideas
solicited and from home and how are we
processing and capturing them who feels
qualified to be able to share those new
ideas what tools are we using to capture
them where are they available where do
they run how dependent are we on github
when and where do these brainstorming
sessions happen is it every single
project that you saw a chart about what
came from github yep good point what
kind of reception do disruptive ideas
receive from the community when they're
proposed whose opinion is able to bless
kill an idea I mean I know it's a
meritocracy and the good ideas always
win and in which languages are the ideas
shared right and then moving up to the
design process like how accessible are
the kinds of specs and that you're
creating to other audiences are they
presented in language that they'll
understand how is is feedback collected
who's deciding if we're ready to move on
to this and how similar in perspective
are the various contributors to the
actual design do they all use the same
Matthieu languages do they all want to
write something in latex that isn't
necessarily accessible to some other
people how can we kind of this is where
it turns into sounding like diversity
and inclusion but it's not really it's
about finding how to create a more
robust design process that doesn't
become centralized around any specific
kind of groupthink then the build
process we already talked about with all
of those code stats but it's easy to say
how many people contributed to the
codebase but more important is probably
how many people made those significant
outsize contributions how specialized
are some of the skill sets that you need
in order to make a significant
contribution and all projects are not
created equal they're how many different
working implementations not just hobby
projects are there how many of those
individuals aggregate up to the same
corporate entity how welcoming are we to
newbies and how about documented is the
code like you could go on and on and on
but we just need to do a better job of
thinking through what these things are
and then I kind of bundled all these
ones at the top here but you know where
is it hosted how's it phoning home all
of the privacy issues that you have
where where are the bottlenecks in this
process and this is where I think it's a
lot easier for us to call out
third-party entities and say oh well you
own that you push that application out
to us and because of that it's
centralized but really especially if you
look at most of the daps there's really
only one way one or two ways to access
them and not a lot of people are
spending their free time even if api's
are published to go out and build
competing implementations so to kind of
wrap up here how might these soft
dependencies impact the etherion
community and also other cryptocurrency
and decentralized projects at large
well every single one of the points that
you said just mentioned it's a point of
centralization in a way and
in a way lack of diversity is also
itself a part of centralization because
she do not get that hetero hetero
generosity and so our takeaway or
takeaway for you is try to evaluate the
projects that you're currently using in
the space and the project that you're
developing and see where these fault
lines are because if we're really trying
to truly become decentralized we can
only cheat for so long before somebody
kind of calls us out calls us out on it
actually not being decentralized and
ultimately what are we trying to build
is it about maxing out those
decentralized stats and competing stats
and if we do that do we not run the risk
of ending up with either a year of the
Linux desktop problem for these
applications or possibly that it stays
something like tor where it's great for
people in the bubble but not widely
acceptable we need to think kind of
outside that bubble and remember what
the ultimate goal there is which is to
build these kind of applications that
allow us to challenge existing power
structures and foster human consent so
thank you it's cool to see how you
layout the development process and and
suggest how we can decentralize that is
there any do you guys clover
adopt any kind of practice in that
development process to make your code
development process more decentralized I
think there's there's a danger in kind
of adopting a methodology versus keeping
these things in mind and evaluating them
when new information meets you so we do
think about these things all the time
but it's not it's not kind of a rigid
process to go through because when you
want once you have kind of a rigid
process it gets a lot easier to loose
information and care about the wrong
things and I really don't think that it
matters that you know a single company
or even a small group of individuals are
putting tools out there if those tools
are allowing the people that use them to
come to achieve the ends that they're
looking for we just need to be aware
that yeah if those people get hit by a
bus or that company implodes or they
just suddenly decide that do no evil was
a bad slogan and then we're stuck with
it like that those are things that we
need that the community needs to
inoculate itself
four and hopefully theoretically market
forces are supposed to take care of that
but it would be probably a better idea
to design for it up front and it's not
really easy to say how we live up in in
the tool the tools that we showed for
example to kind of being decentralized
of course it's hosted centrally but you
could take those javascript files and
HTML file you could put it somewhere
else
so is that decentralized okay awesome I
think that's our time Thank You amber
and Patrick thank you
you