pirx on Nostr: How can we create a decentralized Google Docs replacement on Nostr? Google Docs uses ...
How can we create a decentralized Google Docs replacement on Nostr?
Google Docs uses a synchronization method known as Operational Transformation (OT). Google and others have built very useful real-time collaboration tools using this technology, but OT requires a central coordinator to achieve consistency across clients.
An alternative to OT called Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDT) offers the same real-time syncing with the added benefit of not needing a central coordinator. It is being successfully used in production using websockets and webRTC.
While CRDT is designed to enable decentralized peer-to-peer synchronization, the communication protocols currently used by CRDT applications do not deliver true decentralization. Websockets implementations require all participants to connect to the same websocket endpoint running on a single server. WebRTC implementations use peer-to-peer connections for the data transfer, but they require the use of a central signaling server to establish connections between clients.
Nostr has the potential to deliver true decentralization to CRDT applications. On top of that, plugging CRDTs into the rest of the Nostr ecosystem will enable use cases and designs that were not possible before.
With current Nostr social apps, each user has the power to control their feed through relay selection, their contact list, and their mute list. These concepts might be applied to a publicly shared CRDT document to allow for open public collaboration without central access control. Anyone would have the ability to submit edits to a document, but everyone else would also have the ability to filter other people’s edits from their own perspective as they see fit.
Google Docs uses a synchronization method known as Operational Transformation (OT). Google and others have built very useful real-time collaboration tools using this technology, but OT requires a central coordinator to achieve consistency across clients.
An alternative to OT called Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDT) offers the same real-time syncing with the added benefit of not needing a central coordinator. It is being successfully used in production using websockets and webRTC.
While CRDT is designed to enable decentralized peer-to-peer synchronization, the communication protocols currently used by CRDT applications do not deliver true decentralization. Websockets implementations require all participants to connect to the same websocket endpoint running on a single server. WebRTC implementations use peer-to-peer connections for the data transfer, but they require the use of a central signaling server to establish connections between clients.
Nostr has the potential to deliver true decentralization to CRDT applications. On top of that, plugging CRDTs into the rest of the Nostr ecosystem will enable use cases and designs that were not possible before.
With current Nostr social apps, each user has the power to control their feed through relay selection, their contact list, and their mute list. These concepts might be applied to a publicly shared CRDT document to allow for open public collaboration without central access control. Anyone would have the ability to submit edits to a document, but everyone else would also have the ability to filter other people’s edits from their own perspective as they see fit.