We definitely should not technically exclude them from doing anything on the network.
We probably also shouldn’t exclude them from trying to get funding in, e.g., Catalyst just based on the fact that they have patents.
But we can very much socially exclude them stating that patents are very much the opposite of openness, trustlessness, decentralisation.
This is where I feel people need to understand better. There are sadly examples of also open source projects taking the trust from users and running with it for their own purposes. A open source project or one with our without patents does not guarantee full decentralization. I say look at what is actually implemented and hold companies responsible whatever form they choose to implement. And yes you could argue that you can read the source code and verify not trust but my point is as long as there is a service provided that can be shut down then no you are still trusting. We have seen examples of everything from how dexes defines “slippage” to projects getting funding on Cardano then building out on completely different blockchains etc. Open source can be a great advantage but I think also it would be an advantage if our community has an open mind and is inviting to develop on. Maybe I should write an article showing examples of open source and decentralized projects that have broken trust and what users should be looking out for as well, I feel the space needs some education on this as I see this argument so often and it is not nuanced and it is not real to what is actually happening. I am for open source just as much as some of the most ardent supporters but I am also for the right to choose and I also see that it is not the answer to all problems.
I did not write about open source.
My favourite wallet app is not open source. Not a problem to me since what they implement are open protocols that anyone could implement.
And I keep telling people that open source does not equate security or decentralisation.
But I still wouldn’t touch a project that tries to “protect” its “innovations” by patents with a ten-foot pole. The only reason to do that is to have the ability to sue other implementations of that protocol out of existence, to ensure that they are the only ones extracting profits from that specific protocol. Not what I’m here for.
Fair enough you wrote about openness so this is why I put that argument out but yeah you seem to have a nuanced view as well so appreciate that comment.
This is not the only reason to have a patent, but protecting income in the first years if you have invested heavily in r&d is yes and is a reason why some argue patents give more invention - objectively, if you look at numbers the most successful industries like the computer industry has a lot of patents so wherever we are on the fence if it is good or not it is a real thing that is not likely going away anytime soon and we as an ecosystem need to think if we are going to interact with this reality or not. “sue other implementations of that protocol” - I think there is some discussions in legal circles that under US law this would fail the so called “Mayo” test and it is hard to patent a protocol directly luckily and I agree that would be quite bad if it was the case. I am no patent experts and I have said there are pro / cons on both side of arguments and I am going to leave that part of the discussion to someone more knowledgeable if they want to partake.
When it comes to Iagon you can read the patent filing yourself and make a call on it. I do not see any threats here to the Cardano ecosystem but maybe I am wrong. I certainly would not have supported Iagon if I believed that to be the case - in fact I think it is otherwise and that they will help accelerate decentralization by making compute & storage more cheaply available and it seems the patent revolves around the marketplace and usage of that marketplace to make it as efficient as possible (thus reducing costs) and that other providers are not blocked from providing thus I am not afraid for the competition aspect either.
@Eystein_Hansen I think you are biased by your heavy bags of Iagon.
Has Iagon looked into other blockchains? Cardano does not exclude anyone so you are always welcome here. However, I gather that Hedera Hashgraph did have patents and closed source code, I am not sure if they still do, but you might find their community more receptive to patents and closed source code.
Different communities tend to have different philosophies. As @johnshearing stated:
Most people involved with Cardano have specifically chosen it for some strongly held reasons. Perhaps you could use the Hosk Said app to do some searching to see if IOG developers or Charles Hoskinson have made any public statements about how they view patents in the past. This might provide some more insight into the sort of web 3 world Cardano is trying to build.
I have been in the ecosystem for many years and even risked my career going full time into Cardano, and follow and take to heart what Charles have said. Cardano is a collection of open-source and patent-free protocols. That does not limit its usage to companies that are patent-free or open-source. Key difference and one that is actually important since it means we do not limit our ecosystem. The moment I see a majority of Cardano ecosystem is doing that I am out as it means we have lost our ways and values for sure. I think it is quite cancerous to say go to hedera if you have a patent/are closed source. Luckily that is not the case. We are supposed to be a ecosystem for the world and we are supposed to be able to bring change in Africa and to bank the bankless. We don’t do that by not interacting with companies that have patents or have only open-sourced code. Don’t for a second think that I am not for open-source. I am fully committed myself to open source but I am going to defend the right of companies to interact with us be it open-sourced or not. I bleed for Cardano and I think in governance you let any party partake and express opinions even the ones you do not like yourself. I see it the same way with building on Cardano. I might not like it and I will advice and influence you otherwise but I will defend your right to participate.
Don’t disagree that I am biased by holding Iagon very open about that. It is important to me since finally we have an infrastructure play I can contribute to. I like the project and I am involved with it. But I don’t think any of I wrote is discarded by that fact. Anyhow have a great day and I will go do something more productive as this discussions is still running in circles.
Your statement seems a baseless appeal to emotion that has nothing to do with the topic of layering closed source patented code on top of the open source patent free Cardano protocol.
I will always avoid using closed source code in a blockchain applications for security reasons.
I will always avoid using patented code because in my opinion it encourages legal predation and discourages innovation.
The biggest growth industry of this century is the Internet and it was released to the world patent free and open source.
CERN released the technology behind the World Wide Web into the public domain through a combination of actions and decisions that established an open and royalty-free environment for its development. The key legal mechanism used in this case was the decision to not enforce intellectual property rights, specifically patents and copyrights, over the fundamental technologies that make up the World Wide Web. This decision was crucial in allowing the web to develop and flourish as a global platform.
Here are the main elements that contributed to the technology behind the World Wide Web being released into the public domain:
Since Cardano follows this same ethos of sharing of ideas, code, and expertise, I expect Cardano will have the same success as the original Internet as Web3, Web4, and beyond are developed.
As for iagon, I will not support any patented closed source project because that opposes decentralization and the ethos of the Internet itself.
Building on internet is not patent free. Same building on Cardano can have patents or not.
Not using patents also can cause predetory behaviour such as a large actor taking idea from a smaller one. Anyhow i did a poll yesterday and a majority supports dapps can use patents on Cardano. https://twitter.com/adanorthpool/status/1693563378541711755
I will allways support anyone building on Cardano (unless illegal) because the opposite means opppsing decentralization and the ethoses of Cardano.
Regarding security yesterday spectrum finance bragged being secure since open sourced. Today someone post having found a major vunerability. Both open sourced or closed sourced projects can be secure or not. I think ideally you would know of the vunerability before its a race between black hats and whitehats.
I respect your choice to be fully dedicated to open source (like it myself) but I try to be open and inclusive to companies wanting to build on Cardano. With the treasury tax of 20% we all win on that and it can fund open sourced projects as for example most categories in Catalyst has.
I am so glad this topic was created even though the initial title got changed. It has made me much more aware of Iagon and for all the wrong reasons.
@Eystein_Hansen I think you’ll have an uphill battle trying to convince most long term Cardano participants that patents and closed source code are acceptable. You might make more progress with such arguments in some other communities like Hedera Hashgraph, as those people may not be so philosophically opposed.
It is true that Cardano does not exclude anyone and so you and Iagon are free to do whatever. However, as @HeptaSean explained, we will use social consensus to point you in the right direction.
Quite simply, closed source code and patented processes is the WRONG direction.
I just get a little sad when I see people digging their heels in so much trying to defend such things.
I won’t be that optimistic –from your/our point of view. Iagon already got a bit of a hype. Large parts/most of the community don’t seem to bother to follow a consistent set of values.
Might well be that Iagon will be successful as “our” replacement for IPFS and more. “It’s Cardano’s own! I have their token! It’s ours! It’s cool!”
Confer also that nobody really cares if DEXes are not really decentralised. Etc. Pp.
I just linked you a poll showing a majority think patented projects can build just fine on Cardano. Imho people saying go to hedera instead of welcoming to build on Cardano is a problem but luckily a minority problem and most welcome builders to the Cardano ecosystem. As a maven ambassador I am pretty concious about welcoming builders in a positive way.
For me this is like saying because I prefer water to soda as its more healthy and saying you cant drink soda here go over to the soda club to drink there. Just generalizing but any topic you care for and think is more healthy should not mean you enforce others to drink your coolaid.
I do.
Though concerns regarding platform risk can be different depending on the application. With a DEX people are looking to use it as a short term conduit for exchanging tokens rather than some infrastructure to hold something of value for the long term. The way I view a DEX is that you do your swap and then you take your tokens so you are only exposed to DEX risk whilst your tokens are being swapped. Sure some people provide liquidity etc. and that involves leaving some value at risk on the DEX. But if the DEX changes the rules / fees etc. then you just leave and take all your value with you.
However, Iagon is seeking to provide a long term data storage building block. This is something that you need to rely upon potentially for a very long time. This is a different level of … P L A T F O R M … R I S K… altogether.
If you are looking to hold something long term like a bond / loan agreement, or some NFT that provides property rights, then you want to ensure every bit of the infrastructure the functionality relies upon is not exposed to extra platform risk.
Consider some NFT providing property rights that relies upon Iagon’s data storage model. What happens to the value of that NFT if Iagon chooses to enforce it’s patents or if Iagon chooses to increase it’s value extraction by changing the fee arrangements in it’s proprietary code?
People really need to consider such things. The value of every NFT / native token on Cardano is ultimately based upon Cardano’s base layer guarantees. It’s level of decentralisation, it’s open source code, it’s lack of patents. If you water those things down then you destroy the value of your tokens residing on Cardano.
I have now learned that:
Like I said above. I wasn’t aware that there were data availability projects building on Cardano that had this closed source and patent protection mentality. My eyes have been opened by this thread, so for that I am grateful.
There are a lot of people out there that don’t understand long term implications and only care about their crypto bags in the short term.
You might consider there are many out there who considers the long term implications of an open ecosystem that while fostering open source for its protocol is welcome to anyone.
Making an argument that states something to be true because a group of people or the majority believe it to be true, is a logical fallacy called Appeal To Belief. It’s also known as argumentum ad populum, appeal to the people, and appeal to the majority.
Anyway, in the poll you linked above, it looks like you were the guy that took the poll.
Did any of your associates vote?
How would we know if they did?
Your poll seems a little closed source to me.
Previously you used the logical fallacy Appeal To Emotion by somehow connecting the disenfranchised in Africa to your closed source patented project. One has nothing to do with the other.
This is shown again below.
That’s the point of this thread. The community would do better to stop paying attention to the hype and evaluate the project based on what they are able to see. I don’t see the progress represented in the hype. We can’t see much because the project is closed source but we can read the patent linked above in this thread, look at the iagon website, look at iagon’s YouTube channel, iagon’s github repository and try their app which moves files around on your own computer using the curl command, and then consider for themselves what this all means for the community and if we should be concerned.
At this point it is just getting funny when you call into question my open poll. Take on your tin foil hat or make another poll if you do not think this express public opinion I have a fairly wide reach on my twitter having been in the ecosystem the last 5 years. Pretty sure the sample is a representative of the population.
I would be very concerned if these things @HeptaSean stated come to pass:
Since I would dare to think for my self and question the results of a pole you took yourself, you attack my character.
This is the Ad Hominem logical fallacy or Attacking The Person: This fallacy occurs when, instead of addressing someone’s argument or position, you irrelevantly attack the person or some aspect of the person who is making the argument.
By this same fallacy you would seek to discredit one who dares to examine the iagon project of which there is little evidence to examine because the project is closed source.
We can examine the patent linked above, the iagon website, look at iagon’s YouTube channel, iagon’s github repository and try their app which moves files around on your own computer using the curl command, and then consider for ourselves if the progress matches the marketing.
Yes I call into question your charachter when you make unfounded claims. Seems to be a habbit you have. Thats not logic fallacy. Do your own poll if you like. Mine was open 24 hours had several thousand views and 150 voted. A majority think patents on dapp are ok. These are objective and measurable things unlike your interpritations and putting arguments into my thinking. I wager if you put a 1 month poll on the topic and we spread it far and wide you will get same result. Unlike what it seems by what you wrote you - I think crowd has wisdom and are not uninformed on this issue.
This is what makes me sad:
When I researched various blockchains several years ago, I remember looking at Hedera Hashgraph. But, when I read about their closed source code and patents, I immediately ruled them out.
But, if dapp developers on Cardano start relying upon Iagon as their data storage solution, then how are we any better than Hedera Hashgraph?
We can’t support any important dapp infrastructure being dependent upon patents and closed source code. We are trying to build an open platform with flexibly interoperable building blocks.