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DeOps

Decentralized Operations

Download this project as a .zip file

The Vision

I found this minute long clip of Steve Jobs in 1990 describing exactly the vision behind DeOps.

It's been over 20 years and Steve Job's vision of a dynamic organization has not been realized (successfully) yet. DeOps is my attempt at pushing the vision forward.

My own vision of DeOps stemmed from organizing development of my open source Gnutella client Gnucleus way back in 2003. My idea was to create a hierarchical version control system where changes would be reviewed as they were pushed up the hierarchy, and flow back down to other contributors. Since then, Git has made a lot of this vision reality for developers.

In 2006 I started development of DeOps as a more general user tool for creating the 'dynamic hierarchical organization' where people could coordinate themselves securely in a scalable, decentralized, fault tolerate network that could survive network outages and fragmentation in different scenarios. As well as being able to work 'offline' coordinating behind firewalls and in places with limted internet access like in disaster areas.

DeOps is coordination software that allows people to create a bottom-up hierarchy of trust. By declaring the structure of the organization in software and giving its members control of the structure, the organization becomes a living thing that can change and adapt rapidly, while providing full transparency to its members.

Services

On top of the organizational structure there are traditional services like storage, communication, and planning - built with a hierarchical twist and leveraging a P2P network to maintain persistence and synchronization.

Hierarchical File System

Hierarchical Voice Chat

Other Services

Demo

This is an run through of the services included with DeOps. Sorry about the audio, I need to re-record it.

The Core

The Hierarchy

Hierarchies serve organizations because they reduce the signal to noise ratio for each user, allowing them to work more effectively. Each user can choose 1 person to trust as a superior. As a result the entire hierarchy is built bottom-up and can change dynamically at any time. DeOps supports matrix organizations with a main functional hierarchy, and separate project hierarchies with their own files systems and communication lines.

The Network

Security

Data and communication in the organization is secured by the organization itself, no 3rd party storage. Personal data and communication is secured by your own key, there is no one to recover your password from. All communication is encrypted, ports are randomized, traffic cannot be fingerprinted.

Client

Create a Global IM profile and send me a hello :) In DeOps click 'add buddy,' and copy/paste the link below. deops://Global+IM/identity/swax/72380fd0782c8b3b:df36b761020fc9c96524b7b41f38764f07fbf9b57e025f5a38fe423b5674df91ac1063004af5ae9481ea050e5d98de5170f049edb5f3c335f03fd05c0623866904ab7bd25ebc89e7523f5b9a5e9b5f7350a2fd4756887ab7a00b9efe319db969934b0faba37f6be2feedfa8aacd2f1e1a948e78a34ec04d2ab4b370d15c8f149