I've been thinking about the best way to summarize the technical milestone I've reached with the research I've been doing on an IPFS-based API. Here's my best attempt:
By achieving the milestone described in this post, I've answered the question, "Is it possible to build a censorship-resistant replacement to a REST API?", with a firm "Yes!". I've eliminated all technical risk with respect to weather the tech is possible. It is. And at the same time, I've laid down a firm foundation upon which the Permissionless Software Foundation (PSF) can iterate.
ipfs-service-provider
The video below demos the ipfs-service-provider code repository. This is a 'boilerplate' (a code template) for building apps that can provide generic web services. This boilerplate can be forked to build any of the web services mentioned in this prevoius post. The video shows the basic JSON RPC that a web or phone app could use, to communicate with and consume the provided services, over IPFS.
This Service Provider software, with the ipfs-coord library integrated into it, provides all the basic technology required to conduct trade:
- A way to find interested parties.
- Private, end-to-end encrypted communication with those parties.
- A way to exchange data.
- A way to exchange value.
The video is made for JavaScript developers, who want to understand and fork the Service Provider code base to build their own IPFS-based services. Don't let the techno-babble distract you from the big picture: peacefully conducting trade.