Re: Ripple

If not for the incentive of xrp we would still be using villages as a
primary system or perhaps multiswap or something.  It is only an advantage
to the extent that ripple labs has given the world a valuable system.  It
will be years before a competing system would have been developed.  We are
all ahead for their doing so.
Le 2013-11-15 13:49, "Kumar McMillan" <kmcmillan@mozilla.com> a écrit :

>
> On Nov 14, 2013, at 3:30 PM, Andrew Miller <amiller@cs.umd.edu> wrote:
>
> > I think everything *except* the consensus algorithm is terrific. The
> > consensus algorithm though, in my opinion, is completely nonsensical
> > and no one seems to be allocating any attention to it. The problem is
> > not with the algorithm itself, but with the assumptions about what
> > parties are chosen to participate.
> >
> > 1. In ordinary distributed systems (a topic with 30 years of academic
> > research, the kind involving Byzantine consensus and Chubby locks and
> > fault tolerant databases etc.,) there is a global system administrator
> > who simply designates N servers to participate in the consensus
> > protocol.
> >
> > 2. But this doesn't work for public/anonymous networks. So Bitcoin is
> > based on a very novel alternative, where the participants are
> > self-selected, their input is weighted according to the "hashpower"
> > they invest, and participation is rewarded with Bitcoins which
> > encourages lots of individuals to participate. This is cool!
> >
> > 3. Ripple, on the other hand, takes yet another approach. There's no
> > global administrator, but nor is there a well-understood public
> > competition. Instead, individual users are supposed to configure their
> > clients to identify particular servers they have determined they
> > trust. Here's where it gets really murky, and I can't figure out any
> > set of assumptions that actually lead to robust functioning of the
> > network. What if users entirely disagree with which servers they
> > trust? Are they on two different networks or the same one? If an
> > individual doesn't do their due diligence, and carelessly approves bad
> > servers, are they individually affected or does it affect the overall
> > network? I really wish more people were looking into this rather than
> > ignoring it, because I suspect it's not sound (although I haven't come
> > up with a super clear explanation why not), and if the underlying
> > assumptions aren't sound then does it matter if the frontend UI is
> > great?
> >
> > Unfortunately the only set of assumptions I can think of that lead to
> > this actually working is where every one essentially picks the same
> > default list, and the servers on that list are actually trustworthy.
> > This is the "centralized" option, where the default list determines
> > who participates, and no user has any incentive to deviate from the
> > default list, either by adding some newcomer they individually trust
> > or by removing default servers they don't trust.
> >
> > https://ripple.com/wiki/Consensus#Not_colluding
> > """
> > In real world terms, people should select a UNL list of 1,000
> > validators. They should choose 200 validators from 5 different
> > continents. They should choose a mix of validators with different
> > interests: merchants, financial firms, non-profits, political parties,
> > religious groups, etc... By choosing a large number of reputable
> > parties who are unlikely to lie or be coerced as a group and that are
> > unlikely to collude to defraud us we can be assured the ledger is
> > accurate.
> >
> > In practice, most people will use the default UNL supplied by their
> > client. But, the software will enable them to choose specific
> > validators if they'd like.
> > """
> >
>
> I agree. Ripple's model seems to be too centralized. It's distributed not
> decentralized. Also, as I understand it, Ripple is reserving some currency
> for itself which seems to give them (as a corporate entity) an unfair
> advantage.
>
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 3:56 PM, Melvin Carvalho
> > <melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 14 November 2013 21:01, Margaux <margaux.r.a@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> I was wondering what people's thoughts were on Ripple. Here is video
> and
> >>> slides from the developer conference in Las Vegas
> >>> https://ripple.com/blog/ripple-developer-conference-2013-replay/
> >>>
> >>> My interest in it is regarding the protocol for currency exchange.
> >>
> >>
> >> Am a fan of both the original protocol, and the ripple.comimplementation.
> >> The server has just become open source so many people are giving it a
> try
> >> now.  I've run it and I have to say I was impressed.
> >>
> >> There are many innovations in ripple.  Things I like are : ability to
> give
> >> credit lines, ability to issue IOUs, ability to create new currency, the
> >> consensus algorithm.
> >>
> >> I've been intending to translate ripple core concepts to the web, so
> that
> >> any of the features can be used in a modular way.  I'm doing bitcoin
> fist
> >> tho, and expect to have most of ripple done Q1 or Q2 next year.
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Thanks!
> >>> Margaux
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Andrew Miller
> >
> >
>
>
>