Swarm conference

Questions

what are the most recent specs / docs / etc?

https://github.com/ethersphere/go-ethereum/ swarm-network-rewrite branch, this will be merged to a master somewhere (either their own fork or the usual upstream geth)
https://swarm-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ - latest docs
are there alternative implementations?

no - there's less benefit since there's no consensus involved - swarm should work with any rpc-supporting client
is there a projected timeline for light clients? - hutch

there's work to do and Status could become involved, else Q2 2019 when PoC4 is done
Is Swarm-PSS going to be more suitable then Whisper as a messaging protocol? I think Whisper is better for anonymity but it would be nice to know more about it. - Andrea (@gravityblast)

it's a strong candidate for sure - for many reasons, including efficiency, flexible routing.. there are open questions too though like immutability (or it being expensive to do stuff like a chat log) and permanence (no way of removing data), will need to dig deeper - mainframe has an implementation of what it could look like

partnerships to to provide database, advanced features
about pss: messaging system with sliding scale of anonymity, ground service for many applications
lower barrier entry for world computer services
stake-based service-level guarantees
poc3 (q2 2018): inclusion proofs - encryption, mutable resource updates, pss etc - running on open/staging cluster - recommended for hacking
poc4 (q1 2019): mostly feature-complete

how to contribute to an incumbent, start small contributions that
add value, eventually take over.. OSS business model different, we're
building infrastructure, swarm itself is infrastructure for other,
projects, help where you can

Anton Evangelatov, devops from EF
p2p/simuation package
running simulations with different nodes, either in-process, child process, docker
works with travis
nodes are created, then sim framework generates events
nodes can have different protocols
used in chunk streams, pss, network discovery tests
p2psim command line client for http api
devp2p protocol simulation very easy
visualisation component present in ethersphere repo

Janoš Guljaš, swarm team
using simulation framework to test message
exchange
streaming: history vs live chunk exchange
more complex messaging scenarios than req-resp
have static tests for: node sync, live/history
streaming
also has dynamic simulation with (dis)appearing nodes, higher
level functionality
highest level of tests: swarm cluster with docker/terraform
there's a open test cluster: https://open.swarm-gateways.net/

what's needed to reach web3?
addressing (break link between ip/location), payments,
communications, databases, computing services (offline, jobs,
heavy), incentivization (behavioral crypto-economics)
building an SDK - a platform for accessing technologies
underneath, devoting resources to many projects underneath
allowing pluggable access to similar systems (ie swarm+ipfs),
essentially doing dapp framework
support dapp development, develop a few own quality reference
dapps, focus on good documentation / simplicity for developers,
delighting developers is a key to success, developer is
main customer
roadmap - sometime this year - devtools, functional service
layers
20ish ppl, hiring engineers

sofware innovation centre, based in madrid
focus on video, heavy on engineers from content distribution
/ akamai
storage on swarm, put governance-necessary information to
blockchain smart contract
when things happen on repo, there are smart contract functions
called
web interface available to browse ethergit repo, create repo
with "standard" governance models
mirrors go-ethereum repo on swarm (cool!)
planning to add issue tracking, sample contracts, bounties
store issues/metadata in swarm with
goal: get rid of github!
haha: could make a contract that requires deposit to push,
no tests? penalty.. buggy code? penalty.
planning to tackle repos/distribution as well (a la npm)

subscription payments
balance flow rates in subscription graph
basic digital income?
discussion: sub vs micropayment? automate the latter makes it
easier, sub allows financial planning / less cognitive overload
similar thinking / project: colony (Aron Fischer)

transcoding to different codecs/bitrates intensive
livepeer creates transcoding market
tricky on privacy - transcoder needs data
tricky on validation - did the transcoder do the right thing?
truebit - step-by-step proofs of work that can be verified -
https://github.com/livepeer/verification-truebit

how to run blockchain deployment in production
manage upgrades, development, topologies
template for deploying: parity-openshift - deploys parity nodes with spefific features
comes with load-balancing, etc
swarm under radar, hard to find code - missing project /
community management
kubernetes - think cattle, not pets - hard to manage nodes
with identity