Sprint call notes from 08 August 2016

[haadcode]

Adding the Pubsub notes from the sprint call discussion:

IPFS PubSub 08 August 2016

Welcome! Note: please add your name to etherpad on the right --------------->

Moderator: David Dias (@diasdavid)

Notetaker: (Nicola Greco @nicola) (with em-ly helping!)(\o/)

Attendees

• @nicola
• @jbenet
• @flyingzumwalt
• @haadcode
• @em-ly
• @dignifiedquire
• @diasdavid
• @betaphors
• @haadcode
• @gavinmcdermott
• @ReidWilliams

Agenda

Pubsub notes

Pre-readings

• PubSub discussions so far: https://github.com/ipfs/notes/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Apubsub
• PubSub repo -> https://github.com/libp2p/pubsub

Background

• How do you get fast and (reliable?) communication amongst peers that subscribe to a particular content?
• Everyone that builds on top of IPFS requires pub/sub
  • e.g. social networks (orbit, ethereum community!)

Requirements for PubSub v1

• Subsecond Latency
• Small networks (thousands of notes)
• No? need for packet switching
• There are a few proposed implementations (links?)
  • Authenticated streams (data model)
• Way of subscribing and getting notification
• Survive the massive amount of churn in browsers!
• Minimize flood (receiving the same message multiple times)
• Authentication MAY wait

TODO

• Design
  • list down a list of requirements
  • do we need authenticated streams?
  • Use cases Pubsub notes ipfs-inactive/2016-IPFS-Workshop-Lisbon#17 (comment)
  • Identify simplest possible implementation
    • e.g. given an annuouncement channel, find a way to form into clusters
      that just need a partial view (needed for Orbit)
  • Iron down authenticated streams
  • Trying to identify the different layers
• Implementation
  • create a shared document and start implementing prototypes
  • Testing: Build very basic implementations and a way to spin up a network with thousand of nodes
  • Write down a BIG ISSUE about IPLD

Lit-review outcome

• Little progress
• Understand concept of treeforming
• We should focus on topic-based pubsub
• Select small spanning trees with not too much effort

Questions

• q: What happened with ethereum?
  • a: not sure what worked
  • a: we may need a post-mortem (there are already papers)
  • a: not sure if it supports that big of a network

Layers

• Defining the interface for pubsub
• Defining the data model for pub/sub (mikola/nicola) PubSub notes from the IPFS Workshop - recursion and corecursion, PubSub API and Self Certified Streams ipfs/notes#154

[daviddias]

Let's keep this going :)

I've added more info to the README and also created the doc with use cases:

• https://github.com/libp2p/pubsub/blob/master/README.md
• https://github.com/libp2p/pubsub/blob/master/USECASES.md

It would be good to have @mikolalysenko and @nicola IPFS workshop notes when it comes to the Interface and Data Model for PubSub

I've also opened issues about the Research review, Ethereum Post mortem, Use cases and Glossary -- https://github.com/libp2p/pubsub/issues.

If you are interested in participating and following the PubSub discussions, make sure to subscribe and star this repo.