Nostr Web Client

Open source digital tools are more decentralized than proprietary, bc open source can be reviewed, forked and modified. But open source tools are not fully decentralized bc they remain stewarded. Repositories have stewards in the form of repo managers; internet standards have stewards in the form of standards committees (often under the auspices of the W3C); etc.

The existence of spoken and written languages like English prove that it’s possible to curate powerful tools of communication in a purely decentralized fashion. Without stewards of any kind.

The decentralized web will not be realized until we have learned to curate our digital tools without the need for digital stewards.

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Discussion

Vitor Pamplona 1y ago

Embrace hard forks.

david 1y ago

Open source in general, and hard forks in particular, are better than proprietary.

And protocols like nostr are better than cathedrals like Bluesky, because you can pick the NIPs you want, experiment with changes, all without permission.

So right now, open source is the best there is.

But a hard fork is just exchanging one steward for another. When it comes to decentralized curation of code, we’re still not fully decentralized. We have not yet reached the end of history.

Vitor Pamplona 1y ago

One of my early dreams with Amethyst was that users were able to fork amethyst before installing it in such a way that every new user holds a new fork of the app.

Unfortunately, the tooling to make that happen is not yet available, but it's already possible with web stacks based on https://hostr.cc/

david 1y ago

What would be the rationale for a user to fork and install rather than just install directly?

devsou.com 1y ago

Maybe a Client Nostr Maker? 🤣

devsou.com 1y ago

Where you can customize the client functionalities.

david 1y ago

That would be cool.

I suppose anyone can already do that in theory, but you’d have to be familiar with the codebase. And know which functionalities that you can customize without breaking things. And of course know how to code! So maybe something to facilitate all that.

david 1y ago

The problem with giving users lots of customizability is that every additional customization is adds work for devs. And most things can’t be changed around without breaking things. This is why the concept of a decentralized digital language is so hard. It’s basically saying that EVERYTHING is going to be customizable. I believe it can be done, and I believe I know how to do it, but it will be different from what we’re accustomed to in a lot of ways and it’s gonna take a lot of work.