[CCS] Alternative Monero node written in Rust has moved to Funding Required
[CCS] Alternative Monero node written in Rust has moved to Funding Required
Why
Currently, Monero only has one node written in C/C++, many would see this as an issue. Having only one implementation makes us more vulnerable to implementation bugs, having another node will help us to spot and fix these issues.
monerod's code is also a bit of a mess, as many devs who have worked on it would agree. Cuprate is a fresh start and is built with modularity in mind which will lead to a cleaner and easier to understand codebase.
Having a consensus rules document will make it easier for developers to build software to interact with Monero. It will also make it easier to spot potential issues with consensus rules.
>All code produced for this CCS will be licensed under MIT.
The decision to change license from AGPL to MIT was a mistake. And what is particularly concerning, apparently a lot of people are okay with that.
Such attitude led to demise of many other communities where independence was sacrificed for "adoption" and corporate takeover was perceived as a good thing.
Can you expound on that and perhaps share some examples of your latter point?
@kowalabearhugs Currently, some parts of Cuprate are licensed under AGPL-3. This means anyone using this code should keep their derivative works as open source and use the same license. The license protects the project from hostile forks and generally serves as a deterrent against privatization of public goods. Lemmy, Mastodon and many other Fediverse servers use AGPL-3 license and it is totally reasonable choice for Cuprate too.
However, when this CCS proposal was discussed some people started to push aggressively against AGPL (going as far as calling it "legal nightmare") and the developer agreed to change the license and even agreed to re-write AGPL-licensed parts of the application if needed.
As I said, this is a mistake, and makes Monero weaker. I think Cuprate may eventually become a dominant implementation because Rust provides a better security and developer experience, and a big chunk of modern cryptographic libraries is being written in Rust (especially in zero-knowledge cryptography). But now any company can safely use Cuprate as part of their infrastructure because it has business-friendly license, create a closed-source fork and hire developers who were previously working on open-source version.
The change of license is basically a signal that corporate interests are more important than interests of ordinary users. As for examples of where this attitude leads, see any cryptocurrency project where companies or "foundations" pay developers for their work and therefore shape the product. Exceptions are rare, and Monero is one of few that relies on donations and crowdfunding.
Would love for more Monero software to be written in Rust. Hopefully some good can come out of this despite the controversy.
Anyone who's been in software development long enough should know that the majority of total rewrite projects fail. Like 99% of the time. Community members throwing money at this proposal might as well be burning their cash.