> However, I disagree with some of the analysis, and have a couple specific points to correct.

[cwebber@social.coop]

Mark is not wrong that standards can't prevent centralization on their own! Mark's analysis of how many things end up re-centralizing is, overall, also largely correct!

However, I disagree in the present moment that standards orgs shouldn't be making decentralization concerns a *key priority*.

[cwebber@social.coop]

But Mark, to be fully fair, does examine several strategies, and their strengths and downfalls, of how we may enable decentralization.

However, the path that Mark most heavily leans into is "Enable Switching". Hm. Does that phrase sound familiar?

[cwebber@social.coop]

"Enable switching" from the RFC:

> The ability to switch between different function providers is a core mechanism to control centralization. If users are unable to switch, they cannot exercise choice or fully realize the value of their efforts because, for example, "learning to use a vendor's product takes time, and the skill may not be fully transferable to a competitor's product if there is inadequate standardization".

(cotd ...)

[cwebber@social.coop]

"Enable switching" cotd:

> Therefore, standards should have an explicit goal of facilitating users switching between implementations and deployments of the functions they define or enable.

Does this sound familiar? If so, it's because it's awfully close to "credible exit"!

[cwebber@social.coop]

As said, I think "credible exit" is a worthwhile goal. But it isn't participatory decentralization, on its own. The ability to *move away* is good, but what if your options are to choose between McDonalds and Burger King? Is that *sufficient*?

[cwebber@social.coop]

In particular, Mark is especially fair to highlight that email and XMPP are great examples of decentralized systems that either ended up centralizing in the case of email or failing to stay alive after the exit of a major player in terms of XMPP.

Mark's RFC has a lot of useful analysis. It does!

[cwebber@social.coop]

So I've given a lot of context for Mark's RFC: it's an RFC by a respected standards author who has a long history of participating in standards from major internet-based corporations. It worries a bit about centralization but overall downplays decentralization more than it plays it up IMO.

[cwebber@social.coop]

And this is important of course, because this is the RFC where the definition of "decentralization" being provided comes from!

Or wait, or is it? Oh right, the RFC cites another source for its definition!

It's time to examine Paul Baran's 1964 paper. The story is about to become more intense.

[cwebber@social.coop]

Except, like a 1990s sitcom, we're gonna cut to a break!

We'll be back... after

=== TEA BREAK 2: MY NOSE IS COLD ===

[cwebber@social.coop]

Alright I'm back from my tea break. But I have a confession for you.

I made hot chocolate instead.

But we are going to get into the second part of the unnecessarily thorough "decentralization" terminology deep dive I'm doing here in just a moment

[cwebber@social.coop]

Before we get into that it's also getting pretty late here and I have another confession to make to you, I was pretty hungry, so you know what I did? I stood in the kitchen and I ate hummus in the kitchen with a spoon over the sink

You have found Secret Goblin #2, judging me for my hummus shame

[viv@snoot.tube]

@cwebber goblin up the hummus

[cwebber@social.coop]

When we last left off I was peeling back layers of the terminology onion and we have gotten to the inner layer (maybe it goes deeper, I guess terminology usually does but this is as far as we go)

It is time to examine "decentralization" in Baran 1964

Because I am being UNNECESSARILY thorough

[cwebber@social.coop]

So here is Paul Baran's "literally the most influential paper to affect networking systems ever" 1964 paper:

"On Distributed Communications: I. Introduction to Distributed Communication Networks" https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM3420.html

It's good, it's amazing, it's INCREDIBLY visionary

[cwebber@social.coop]

So okay yeah it's very military-oriented but... but! The context for this paper is that Paul Baran is arguing for what eventually *becomes* networking as we know it. Baran says: let's use *cheap* equipment with *way less centralization that we've ever seen* and it'll be *better actually!*

[cwebber@social.coop]

And just imagine the *gall* of it: telling the *military* let alone the world oh you know how you love hierarchy? Well guess what, you know what's WAY better, something that's closer to cooperative anarchy, where there's a lot of cooperation lots of error-prone little guys

AND HE WAS RIGHT

[cwebber@social.coop]

Baran comes in with the math to back up his claims, a vision of how basically wifi and satellite and land lines and cable internet would all work together before we even *had* any internet stuff, shows how a packet would look, and says if you want to REALLY be tough, be... "distributed"

[cwebber@social.coop]

Hm, did you notice I said "distributed" and not "decentralized"?

Actually wait... does this sound familiar, have you heard of this paper before?

Could it be? No... it couldn't be...

[unixbigot@aus.social]

@cwebber @spritely Fighter planes don’t even NEED two wings. Why isn’t the war insurance senate committee denying these unnecessary claims?

The full story of the F-15 pilot who landed with one wing

Believe it or not, the legendary F-15 Eagle once landed with only one wing after a mid-flight collision tore the other one off.

Sandboxx (www.sandboxx.us)

[cwebber@social.coop]

And yes of course it is literally the paper that gives us this incredible FIGURE 1, which you have CERTAINLY seen if you have ever heard ANYONE talk about ANY "decentralized" or "distributed" system ever

CENTRALIZED DECENTRALIZED DISTRIBUTED

You know this image. You could never forget this image