So first off, those names SAFERnet, & SAFESTnet would very likely not be good fork names IMO … I was just grandstanding a wee bit with the topic title.
I would like to propose that the core devs of MAIDSAFE fork, develop and maintain a few forks themselves.
There are a few ‘hot’ issues such as PtP/D that give many incentive to fork the network - it would be sad IMO to see the core devs not benefit from such forking when it seems that they could do the forking pre-emptively and take a cut of each of these networks coin as payment for future maintenance and development.
If SAFEnet is going to be as big as many of think it is going to be … then a few core-maintained forks seems not only viable, but preferable - as no one can know which forks might end up failing - and hence the core devs would be able to put their eggs in many basket’s so to speak.
I’d like to hear opinions on this from the devs if possible.
I think MaidSafe should focus on a single version of SAFE and get that to be the dominating network. And let others do all the forks they want because with a first-mover advantage and good enough original version the forks will have a very hard time trying to compete. So the forks would just be healthy competition to the original SAFE network.
But in case it later becomes beneficial, then yes even MaidSafe can make forks if it’s ethically sound from the IPO perspective.
What you are proposing is “I think the internet should have multiple forks, it would be netter than having just one Internet”
We need to stop thinking of safe as a program and more as Internet 2.0 protocol. It is made to be built on, not a final product. It is somewhere between tcp/ip and http (for now, more to come) and not really a “final product” that the end user will /should even know they are using. Do you interact with tcp daily? Yes. Do you know it? Most likely not. If you personally do, you are in the minority.
So long as many here want to include some fairly radical additions to the protocol, then yes, I very much do support having multiple forks of Internet 2.0
And I think it would be very prudent of the team to consider such … as the possibility of other forks taking over the mainline version is quite credible.
Long term there will be a dominant network as society as a whole votes with their feet and join the one they like the best. Hence supporting diversity from the start seems a very good move by the team - such that one of their forks has a greater chance of becoming the dominant fork.
Others can fork the SAFE network. That can be useful in case MaidSafe’s version isn’t good enough. But I think MaidSafe should focus on getting the main version good enough to begin with.
We all live in a world where everyone gets to be their own emperor. SAFE has to be powerful and strong enough to handle forking, because it will definitely happen. And it will make the network stronger, not weaker.
Myself in my thought, I would like a fork that has safe coin look more like a blockchain and have a vault that stores the info in a safe network protocol. Too have the best of two worlds.