Sorry to have to ask such a basic question, i’ve been reading for hours, maybe just not finding the right page. I see the term open source everywhere, but i also see info that implies indirectly that there might be non open source software software (google go mainly)
So is it entirely open source? I switched to linux specifically to avoid having anything other than open source software, i’m hoping it’s open source. If not it’s fine too- i’ll just use a different system, thought eventually i want to host content (video) via IPFS, i won’t be able to do that on the other system…
Also is there only one implementation of IPFS/IPNS? Are there different programs that just use the same standard that work together?
I think IPFS is exciting- i also hope that it doesn’t become too complex- the web became too fancy and complicated, most people need to read text, see pictures and occasionally see a video or hear a file- it’s become so complicated now that you need decent hardware just to browse the net- sure you can do it on a single core with 1 GB, but you need far better hardware to do just basic browsing smoothly. In the late nineties, web pages came up nearly instantaneously. Nowadays there is so much invisible crap (mostly to do with spying/tracking), i hope IPFS doesn’t end up the next tool for marketers to exploit to death, though i’m sure they’ll do everything they can to make it so.
Thanks!
IPFS is completely open source.
but i also see info that implies indirectly that there might be non open source software software (google go mainly)
The go compiler is open source. You can find the source here: GitHub - golang/go: The Go programming language
Also is there only one implementation of IPFS/IPNS? Are there different programs that just use the same standard that work together?
Yes. There’s also a JavaScript implementation (GitHub - ipfs/js-ipfs: IPFS implementation in JavaScript) and a work in progress rust implementation of libp2p (our networking library that we use in ipfs).
I think IPFS is exciting- i also hope that it doesn’t become too complex
IPFS is complex but not quite in the same way as web browsers. There’s a lot of complexity under the covers but, from the user’s perspective, IPFS is just a (dumb) decentralized file system (mostly*). While you can build web apps on-top of it, that relies on the browser to run the actual app.
*the go-ipfs daemon also provides a lot of additional features that aren’t part of the filesystem. I’d like to break it down into smaller, simpler services but that takes a lot of time and effort.
you need decent hardware
Unfortunately, while we’re working on optimizing it, ipfs is not very friendly to low-end hardware at the moment. We’re working in improving performance but it’s a constant battle.
Nowadays there is so much invisible crap (mostly to do with spying/tracking), i hope IPFS doesn’t end up the next tool for marketers to exploit to death, though i’m sure they’ll do everything they can to make it so.
Our mission is to re-decentralize the web. We hope this will allow users to run and control their own services on a decentralized infrastructure, distributing the cost of running the service among the users instead of paying a central party with private data.
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