Distributed Consensus Protocols

Description

Bob Haugen:

"Distributed consensus protocols are the technical level for coming to agreements among independent agents. But the human agreements are not conducted on the technical level, they are conducted by a higher-level protocol.

We call the human level protocol Conversation for Action (CfA). The name and the protocol come from the Cybsersyn project in the late Allende era of Chile; however, it is also used in related forms in almost every type of economic exchange over a network. Another name is Offer-Acceptance, which predates electronic exchange.

CfA’s are well-formulated between two agents, but not among more than two agents." (email July 2015)