Fission helps developers build powerful, web native apps: the user controlled data and app permissions that users are used to from native mobile apps.
Our open source framework provides a web native file system, identity, and end-to-end encryption.
We combine this with a kind of “Heroku 2.0” serverless platform, where developers can run apps and websites directly from their laptops without having to learn complicated DevOps techniques.
There are many many front end developers that we can help be more productive by building everything into the front end.
While we use a lot of cutting edge “web3” tech, the constraint we’ve set ourselves is that this all works in any browser, including on mobile, without any plugins.
What is Web3?
Lots of talk about decentralization and peer-to-peer. Or that it must include blockchain. I see Web3 as a very broad tent.
Web2 was about personalization and interactivity – really, databases and users logging in and creating content. And the rise of open source and social media – which started with people running their own blogs, and RSS connecting them. People directly connecting and creating.
Part of the ideology of Web3 is busting back out of the centralized data and providers, and moving to a more federated model.
1) Going beyond the advertising supported web
The advertising supported web is what drives many of the architectures and actions.
Having alternative revenue streams for using software products means they can be built much more in the service of the user.
Lots of subscriptions out there.
2) Rise of “public infrastructure”
Another name might be “commons infrastructure”
InterPlanetary File System is an example of this. We’ve got a global – or rather, InterPlanetary name space of content addressing. This is akin to the entire IP-based infrastructure of today’s internet, except it applies to content, not what machine / server / phone / or watch its on.
We can rely on this infrastructure to be available everywhere, and thus can build on top of it.
3) Edge Computing
Fastly Compute@Edge and Cloudflare Workers
WebAssembly – the 4th programming environment supported in the browser, after CSS, HTML, and JavaScript.
Figma – a popular collaborative design tool that runs in the browser – runs on WebAssembly. We can port desktop apps to browser environments.
“End user” awareness, the zeitgeist of personal data awareness
How real is the end user desire for privacy and data control?
Open discussion.
Old saying: if you’re not paying, you’re the product.
Making open source radical again
Is open source radical today? It was 15 years ago.
Today, large corporates benefit greatly from open source licenses. Maintainers, less so.
So one of the big discussions has been around open source sustainability.
See https://feross.org/funding-experiment-recap/ for background and full write up on this.
Getting radical with open source likely means shaking up the simple axis of copyleft (GPL and friends) vs permissive licenses (MIT, Apache, etc.)
Parity – use code in any way you like as long as the source is open. Pay if you want to use it closed.
Prosperity – use code in any way you like, closed or open. Pay if you want to use it for-profit.