The Satoshi Oath for Blockchain Developers
= "a tool to make visible the informal social processes that are part of the infrastructure, to consider who or what benefits or who or what is left behind by different design decisions".
URL = http://ipfs.b9lab.com:8080/ipfs/QmXysWEAexXQqYZhTGpECvksnaBkSEWHdGhM7vNeHxue2g/
Description
"The Satoshi Oath for developers is designed to draw out the edges and limitations of the technical architecture in guaranteeing these values and to help each person clarify what exactly they mean for each given project they might work on. It is a tool to think through how a project might relate to the people and environments that it affects and to think beyond code.
To do this, it takes each of these three central properties of the blockchain and adds two helpful concepts to start questioning how values like immutability, neutrality and decentralisation relate to the social contexts where they are being applied: Power, Change, Delegation, Disclosure, Dissensus and Exodus.
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The Satoshi Oath for developers is a tool to make visible the informal social processes that are part of the infrastructure, to consider who or what benefits or who or what is left behind by different design decisions. A decentralised computer network does not guarantee decentralised power, transparency does not guarantee legibility and finally, code and cryptography does not guarantee neutrality." (http://distributingchains.info/dissensus-protocol/)
Characteristics
"– Immutability is a central attribute of the blockchain to ensure trust in the system and integrity of the data. But not every situation can be anticipated: the world changes, systems need to adapt and data might be incorrect and even hurt someone (take the example of medical records, credit ratings or identity systems). There might be situations where the rule of immutability needs to be flexible, where the protocol or the data in fact does need to be changed. Ask yourself, who (or what) has the power to change the protocol in such a situation? What are the processes for this? What is the full range of people and environments that might be affected by this change? How will a non-technical user be made aware of changes that might affect them? In what ways can they influence this?
– Neutrality is an ideal that should be strived for but is never fully realised because all systems operate on a set of assumptions about how the world works, what people want and how they behave. A design is usually open for negotiation in the early days, before one version wins out over another and becomes normalised and possibly made into a standard. When these assumptions are encoded into a system they become automatically reinforced, invisible and harder to change. Ask yourself, what are the assumptions and behaviours that are delegated to the infrastructure to automatically reinforce? What needs to be disclosed in order for people to be able to understand, influence and possibly even change the assumptions of the system down the line? What languages (code or human-based) are needed for such explanations to make it understandable to those affected?
– Decentralisation could be said to be the most fundamental principle of blockchain technology. But in practice, one version of decentralisation might clash with another, and if it becomes compulsory to take part in a decentralised system, the system itself becomes an oppressive authority in its own right.
— The only difference being that it is less obvious than centralised authorities of the past because power is executed across multiple actors in the network. Ask yourself, how does the system deal with dissensus?
— Is it possible to disagree with the development of/changes to a system? How can it be expressed, by whom and with what consequences? Is exodus possible? — To leave the system entirely? And what are the different consequences for different types of users and contributors for disagreeing or leaving?" (http://distributingchains.info/dissensus-protocol/)