I think only the pools that successfully go thru testnet are allowed into main-net at first stages. So registration may be considered to be for both test and main nets.
If you go to registration page - there are some forms to fill and checkboxes to check.
Question was “Is Praos going to supplant the older Ouroboros? Or is this still under consideration?”
Good question. Ouroboros is currently implemented. We went with it because it’s easier to run and also fully peer reviewed. Praos isn’t finished yet.
We are currently improving praos and will move To a later version of the protocol. It’s semi-synchronous, doesn’t require a heavy MPC protocol for randomness and encourages us to adopt a quantum resistant signature scheme for input endorsers and slot leaders. This means block times can be shorter and the protocol will run faster in practice. Expect praos in 2018 partly starting with the shelley release and later releases.
Will stake pools be making use of cloud services providers such as AWS, Azure and Google? If so, if those companies go down, or their services go through some catastrophic failure – that means the Cardano network nodes go down as well, right?
“Delegation will be done through a special transaction and from a user experience viewpoint, via the delegation center in Daedalus. A user can find a stake pool they wish to delegate to, select it, and click a “delegate” button. It’s just that simple. As we launch Shelley testnets, we’ll experiment with different user experience flows, from length of delegation to partial delegation (splitting stake between pools).”