Cardano node diversity meetup

# Cardano node diversity meetup  The year is ~~50 BC~~ 2025 AD. ~~Gaul~~ Cardano is entirely occupied by the ~~Romans~~ Cardano community. Well, not entirely... One small village of indomitable ~~Gauls~~ engineers still holds out against the ~~invaders~~ full decentralization of the Cardano software stack. > Dad joke and quite inversed.. I'm not even sure if people know Asterix outside of France and Germany? Jokes aside .. as we entered the age of voltaire with now fully decentralized governance, not many things are still centralized in the Cardano ecosystem, but all blocks are produced by a single software component developed and maintained by a single company. Naturally, quite a few people set out to change that and individual aspects of the Cardano protocol have been successfully ported to other languages and technologies. However, what makes Cardano .. Cardano? As we start discussions across multiple teams working on Cardano components - current and future - in initiatives like the [cardano-blueprint](https://cardano-scaling.github.io/cardano-blueprint/), we thought it would be a good time to meet up in person, discuss and hack together on things **that maintain integrity of the Cardano network while also supporting node diversity**. ## What now Charles has pledged to sponsor a meetup to kick-off discussions on **node diversity** and **conformance testing**, to ensure knowledge is shared between the existing and future Cardano node implementations. ### When & Where - Paris, France - Mon Apr 7 to Wed Apr 9 2025 - Modus Create/Tweag meeting rooms (near Gare de Lyon) - Accomodation in a hotel close-by - There is also [Blockchain Week Paris](https://www.parisblockchainweek.com/schedule) Tue-Thu that week ### Agenda - Apr 6: travel day/arrivals, informal evening gathering - Apr 7: first workshop day, with charles, planned sessions, open space set up - Starts 9:30 - Welcome, introductions, pitches, expectations - Coffee break 11:00 - Rules, goal and agenda setting - What does node diversity mean to you? - Lunch break 13:00 - Open space 1 - Coffee break 15:30 - Open space 2 - Ends 17:00 - Group dinner at 19:00 (meet at 18:30 in front of Montparnasse) - Apr 8: second workshop day, open space technology, individual dinner - Starts 9:30 - Open space 3 - Coffee break 11:00 - Stop & reflect, early conclusions - Lunch break 13:00 - Open space 4 - Coffee break 15:30 - Open space 5 - Ends 17:30 - Apr 9: invited talk, open space conclusions, first departures - Starts 9:30 - Experience report on ethereum/tests - Open space 6 - Coffee break 11:00 - Session summary and conclusions - Lunch break 13:00 - Key take-aways and next steps - Coffee break 15:30 - Ratify meetup report - Ends 17:00 - Apr 10: departure/travel day ### How After welcoming and some logistics, we will have introductory rounds where we want to get to know each other and gather everyones first expectations. Expect to answer questions like - who are you? - what made you come to Paris? - what's something you want to share to the group? - what do you want us to create in this workshop? Using this early input, we will enter the real goal and agenda setting session driven by the question "What does node diversity mean to you?". This is the set-up for the following [open space sessions](https://buidl.2024.cardano.org/posts/2024-01-10-open-space/). Some session ideas that could match the theme: - Present a testing technique you are currently using on some cardano component - Set up an adversarial test network - at least in our heads - Sketch a {CDDL specification, JSON schema, ...} repository that people can rely on - Refine some architectural decisions on <your project> together on a whiteboard - Analyse together how Leios will change existing and guide the design of future node implementations - Experience report from a contributor on https://github.com/ethereum/tests And topics that people already shared to be interested in: - "I would be very interested in any questions/discussions around missing documentation/unclear semantics/shared tests for the Consensus and Storage layer of the (abstract) Cardano node for the benefit of alternative implementations." - "Generalized Traceability for Benchmarking and Testing" - "How to certify a ledger state without requiring a canonical format (or maybe requiring a canonical format for some of it)" - "current testing techniques on cardano node" - "Emitting signals from the Cardano node, so we can store some historical data as we sync a node and not have to use dbsync to operate a partner chain." Unless we realize that another way of structuring our workshop is more promising, we should have time for 6 open space sessions of about 1.5h each. Mid-way we will stop & reflect, draw early conclusions and use the opportunity to change course if needed. On the last day we will summarize and conclude on the sessions we had throughout the workshop. We identify key take-aways and potential next steps in furthering (or not?) node diversity of Cardano. Also, we thought about co-signing a meetup report that contains all this findings in the very end. :::success Suggestions on the approach extremely welcome! ::: ## Who We thought about a group size of around 25, which ideally includes many users of a potential conformance test suite, developers of new node implementations, power users and integrators - only engineers! :::info The invitations are closed now and below you can see the list of people who we expect attending. ::: | Name | Notes | RSVP | |---------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|:-----| | Adam Dean | CIP editor, community guy | ✅ | | Alexander Esgen | involved on `ouroboros-consensus`, Tweag | ✅ | | Alexander Nemish | author of `scalus`, Lantr | ✅ | | Andre Knispel | formal methods on ledger specs, IOE | ✅ | | Arnaud Bailly | involved on `amaru`, keen on conformance testing nodes, CF | ✅ | | Brian Bush | works on leios R&D, IOE | 👎 | | Charles Hoskinson | sponsor, only monday | ✅ | | Chris Gianelloni | involved on `amaru` and `dingo`, Blink Labs | 👎 | | Christos Palaskas | test engineer, lead partner chains | ✅ | | Damien Czapla | developer relations on `amaru` and pragma | ✅ | | Josh Marchard | involved on `amaru`, SundaeLabs | ✅ | | JP Raynaud | leads on `mithril`, PaloIT | ✅ | | Kris Kowalsky | sponsor, Modus Create / Tweag | ✅ | | Juergen Nicklisch-Franken | benchmarking & tracing of `cardano-node`, IOE | ✅ | | Marcin Szamotulski | leads on `ouroboros-network`, IOE | ✅ | | Marek Mahut | leads on `blockfrost`, uses nodes a lot, BlockFrost | 👎 | | Martin Kourim | leads testing of `cardano-node`, IOE | ✅ | | Matthias Benkort | leads on `amaru`, developed `aiken`, CF | ✅ | | Michael Smolenski | new product hire, IOE | ✅ | | Michele Nuzzi | typescript node, Harmonic Labs | ✅ | | Nicholas Clarke | involved on `cardano-ledger` and `ouroboros-consensus`, Tweag | ✅ | | Ori Pomerantz | contributor to [ethereum/tests](https://github.com/ethereum/tests), only wednesday | ✅ | | Paul Clark | architect to modularize things, IOE | ✅ | | Paul Weiss | customer / power user of `cardano-node`, partner chains | 👎 | | Pi Lanningham | works on `amaru` and Leios, Sundae Labs | ✅ | | Roland Kuhn | works on Leios and `amaru`, CF | ✅ | | Ricky Rand | sponsor, IOE | ✅ | | Santiago Carmuega | leads on `amaru`, TxPipe, built many rust tools | ✅ | | Sam Leathers | product owner of `cardano-node`, IOE | ✅ | | Sebastian Nagel | knows people, IOE | ✅ | | Stevan Andjelkovic | involved on `amaru`, especially (conformance) testing, CF | ✅ | | Steven Johnson | architect on `catalyst` and `hermes` (rust framework) | ? | | Vladimir Volek | works on `blockfrost`, uses nodes a lot, BlockFrost | ✅ | - 👎 Cannot attend - 👋 Not sure yet, but considering - 👍 Confirm interest in attending - ✅ Booked