What is Protocol?

Hi, I’m aggre.

Dev Protocol is a tool built on Ethereum. It is a system which replaces the traditional model of donations for OSS funding. The protocol we've built creates opportunities to monetize OSS projects by allowing people from anywhere in the world to stake their cryptocurrency on verified GitHub repositories, where both patrons and OSS projects receive an annual percent return, paid in tokens. Additionally, our protocol can tokenize OSS projects creating a unique incentive model for development from the community. It’s important to understand that this is not a platform, but a protocol. We intentionally included the word in our name to differentiate ourselves from web services or platforms. We aren't normally ones to delve deeply into research on the semantics behind a name, but in this case, it's an important distinction to make.

Protocols currently in existence permalink

A great start to get the idea of Dev Protocol is to look for similarities in the internet's ecosystem:
In the modern world of the internet, we see many types of web service using various digital payments for monetization. Most of the service is paid with credit cards, for example, “Alice pays X dollars for Bob”.

A protocol called ISO8583 is used for credit card payment. Since it is a payment via the internet, protocols such as TCP, IP, SSL and TSL are used as well. The money transfer from Alice to Bob is one type of protocol. There are a lot of protocols, but the meaning of each protocol is not so necessary! The fact that the web as we know it is composed of a group of protocols is an important point.

Let’s say a person is launching an e-commerce store without utilizing any existing protocols. Would it be an "e" commerce store? Would it be able to exist at all without all of the modern internet protocols we use every day without realizing? This is a rhetorical question, but for the sake of clarity, the answer is no, it would be completely useless, disconnected from the world, unreachable, unusable, and practically non-existent. The web protocols are a critical component of the internet, where as a web service is merely a convenient product, where, without it, the core functionality of the web would not change.

I think you get the idea on the difference between “web service” and “protocol”.

What’s Dev Protocol used for? permalink

Dev Protocol enables people to monetize open assets such as OSS, Open Access, etc. It is a kind of function that replaces arrangements like “Alice pays X dollars for Bob” mentioned in the previous chapter.

The difference between open assets and mugs sold at an online shop is that people cannot receive payment as compensation for the service of open assets. Creators of open source software release these high value pieces of technology with good intentions, knowing full well that they will have to earn their living from another source of income. There is a disconnect between the ease of using such software, and how to fund it. Imagine if there was an ecosystem where everyone was rewarded monetarily for participating in creating/funding.

Conventionally, the biggest chance for monetization that people can rely on with open assets was donation. Donation itself is one of the greatest protocols. However, we thought it inappropriate that open assets rely on a single protocol. That’s why we developed Dev Protocol.

What can we do with Dev Protocol? permalink

Briefly speaking, it’s like this : “Both Alice and Bob gain an income without money transfer.” Oh, please don’t think that I’ve turned into an enigmatic alien from outer-space!

It sounds crazy but it's true, the income here is not cash but crypto assets called DEV. DEV is inflating slowly, in other words, it increases the total amount of supply gradually. Its new supply is allocated to people depositing DEV into the repositories of OSS creators. Depositing is usually called “Staking”.

Patrons who have staked their DEV receive additional DEV tokens as a reward. For example, if the staked DEV is 100%, the total DEV with new supply becomes 120%. OSS creators receive the new supply of DEV in proportion to the number of staking that they’ve obtained.

Let me organize what I’ve talked to you so far in the next chapter.

Who uses Dev Protocol? permalink

There are 3 types of people.

1. Authors
2. Patrons
3. Maintainers

Their description is as follows:

Authors
Authors do activities that are subject to patrons’ support. Open source developers, researchers and creators are categorized as such people. Authors gain owner reward in proportion to the obtained number of staking.

Patrons
Patrons stake on OSS projects in order to support authors’ activities. Patrons gain staking rewards in return for supporting authors.

Maintainers
Maintainers help develop the protocol, authenticating authors’ activities, and improve the core of Dev Protocol.

Are we Dev Protocol? permalink

I think you’ve already noticed that protocols are not developed by certain companies, as I touched on it in the previous chapter. The internet is never composed of only one company.

Dev Protocol is maintained by Frame00, a Japanese company, currently. However, its control over the protocol is going to slowly dwindle little by little in the process of “decentralization”, which would take 6 months to 1 year and a half, as we give control over to the community.

As long as Dev Protocol is a protocol, its existence is like that of the internet (TCP/IP) or SSL/TSL, so it shouldn’t be developed for sales by a single commercial company.

Maintenance without administrators permalink

Our idea is that a system maintained by people meeting and parting based on incentives is more sustainable in terms of neutrality and permanence, rather than a maintenance system that relies on a legal body.

The reason why we adopted Ethereum as the basis for Dev Protocol is the same. Since Ethereum is one of the decentralized computing, it runs without administrators.

That means, in case we’re all run over by a bus, Dev Protocol continues to operate normally. When it comes to the adequacy of a protocol, such function should be required, and have no single point of failure.

What can developers do? permalink

If you have an idea for an open source project but lack funds or funding to accomplish your goals, Dev Protocol may be the tool for you.

You can also create monetizing services on the web for users such as Authors and Patrons. There is no need to pay commission for the protocol, and no restriction like API limit. You can work as a Maintainer to develop a protocol itself. There aren’t so many codes required.

We have a more concise overview of Dev Protocol in our documentation here: https://docs.devprotocol.xyz/dev-protocol/

For those who want to know more about Dev Protocol, I’m preparing an article about decentralized protocols for my next entry.