I had such an interesting call today with someone from @ethereumfoundation about funding the #opensource ecosystem.

[sheogorath@microblog.shivering-isles.com]

@Gina @ethereumfoundation I get the idea, but there are so many strange problems folded into it. E.g. how do you distribute the money?

E.g. if you have a node application and you have a dependency like expressjs (a full webserver thingy) and the "isEven" package, do both get the same amount of money? Do you set percentages?

And the questions with all things Blockchain:

1. How does it become real money again?
2. What happens with unclaimed dependencies?
3. How does it attract attackers?

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@Gina

I have a gut feeling that this might be trying to wedge a blockchain into something where no blockchain is needed.

But if there is a way for going beyond individual developers / projects asking donations, and Tidelift in the more corporate space, excellent!

[bendoubleu@mastodon.llyxx.me]

@Gina @ethereumfoundation
I’d say this seems like a legitimate blockchain use case. open source maintainers are globally distributed across jurisdictions/countries.

automatic dependency splits across hundreds of recipients with no trusted intermediary is genuinely hard to replicate with traditional payment rails.

Using mandate-generated SBOM data as the funding graph is elegant. The hard unsolved piece is the SBOM to wallet mapping, but that's an identity problem, not a blockchain problem.

[pitrh@mastodon.social]

@neil @Gina this version I feel is a bit closer to reality -

[kineticdiplomacy@infosec.exchange]

@Gina @ethereumfoundation you lost me at blockchain.

[arod@social.coop]

@Gina @ethereumfoundation based on my knowledge of the history of music royalties, a well-meaning system won by a massive labor organizing effort, I am extremely skeptical of this idea being effective in practice. There are too many ways to game complicated systems like this and it ends up benefitting the people who have the resources to understand all the complicated pieces (in this case, coders)

[dan@tilde.zone]

@Gina @ethereumfoundation Sounds like a good use case for smart contracts. Theoretically it would allow anyone donating to a project to know how the funds get split. Practically, per transaction fees are extremely volatile, but apparently cheap now. Most people wouldn't know how to decipher a smart contact and even people who should know have been scammed in the past.

[janl@narrativ.es]

@Gina blockchain no thanks

[cy@fedicy.us.to]

Doesn't paint Cloudflare as a raging behemoth destroying privacy, torturing innocents, and ruining everything at any costs so they can have complete control.\

CC: @neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk @Gina@fosstodon.org

[jimsalter@fosstodon.org]

@jannem @Gina @ethereumfoundation "blockchain" implies grifting. "Ethereum" essentially screams it from the rooftops.

Blockchain is one of those sorts of technologies that does in fact have some very interesting uses, but it's been so widely used for fraud that legitimate uses generally avoid admitting to it by name.

Look at people bending over backward to claim that git isn't blockchain, for example: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46192377/why-is-git-not-considered-a-block-chain

[ramonfincken@mastodon.social]

@Gina @ethereumfoundation i stopped reading when I saw the word blockchain

[jimsalter@fosstodon.org]

@pitrh omg, what a fucking work of art. It's like the original xkcd had a baby with the old org chart meme:

[jimsalter@fosstodon.org]

@becomethewaifu @jannem @Gina I'm familiar with that argument--that "Blockchain" doesn't count unless it's "distributed"--and counter that this is an example of *exactly* the kind of NO WAIT THIS ISN'T BLOCKCHAIN! NOT REALLY! PLEASE DON'T WALK AWAY! that I'm talking about.

[slink@fosstodon.org]

@Gina @ethereumfoundation i cant find the reference any more, but this sounds like something which i heard of a couple of years back. that was an overdesigned concept where people would pour money in one end and it would magically distribute it "fairly" by relevance.

such a system will never work, and it never needs a blockchain.

the blockchain people still seem desperate to find a applications and still seem to think that their magic would save the world. won't work.

[slink@fosstodon.org]

@Gina @ethereumfoundation what does work is this: pay the devs who develop the software you rely on.

we do not have a problem of distributing funds more fairly, we habe a problem of funds.

[slink@fosstodon.org]

@Gina @ethereumfoundation the sexy top project should fund its dependencies

[cosmichorror@fosstodon.org]

@bryanredeagle @Gina yup, and there are existing projects that do it sans blockchain like https://thanks.dev

[efraim@tooot.im]

@jimsalter
How have I never seen this before‽
@pitrh

[renatoram@fosstodon.org]

@Gina @projectmoon there is currently no problem that can be solved with a blockchain that can't be solved better and cheaper WITHOUT a blockchain (well, except facilitating money laundering and crime).

Of course the people behind Ethereum won't tell you that, but as we say in Italy that's like asking the innkeeper if their wine is any good.

Also, Ethereum is *extremely* sketchy (international crime level sketchy)

[jimsalter@fosstodon.org]

@efraim @pitrh maybe you're not old enough? Notice that the chart says "Facebook" not "Meta." It's about 15 years old now.