# gotlig: reply to solderpunk // 21-10-23

solderpunk has a beautifully elaborated phlog entry about the idea of
[using git for content distribution][1] which really struck a nerve
with me. With a wonderful enthusiasm, it puts into well-crafted words
ideas and feelings that were lurking in my brain for a long time:
git is an almost perfect tool for distributing written content in a
censor- and failure-resistant way, independent of transport details
and working the same smooth way on- and offline. Go read that text!

[1]: gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~solderpunk/phlog/low-budget-p2p-content-distribution-with-git.txt

I won't repeat more of that excellent article -- which I can fully
agree with, in case you did not yet notice -- but there is one question
raised which is already answered, IMHO: How to link to content in a
"git-conformal" way, without resorting to gopher/http/gemini/whatever
links as a workaround? Well, solderpunk mentions IPFS, and to me the
answer seems clear: with hashes like in IPFS, only this time it would
be hashes of git commits. As with IPFS, this seems totally not obvious
if you think of links being addresses with routing. But in a system
which allows you to quickly search large spaces of distributed hash
tables, it's evidently the easiest and most secure and safe way.

So if I want to make sure somebody knows where to find my newest post,
I'll just give them the hash of the *preceding* commit in my repo, or
once it's written, to the commit containing it. This might of course
be automatized in some way by a "gotlig" client (which I'd like to call
solderpunk's idea of a "gitlog" system), which is a hypothetical user
interface to edit and publish one's own git-based public log system and
to access other people's instances.

And yes, solderpunk's idea totally works, methinks: I've been using it
that way with my own content (hosted on and synced between my servers,
harddisks and datasticks), and the Circumlunar Transmission zine is
a working example -- incidentally, you can find its second issue at
"ghash://0c8b10769622f781d8a8af55f858d8d4561b9355" if you allow me to
coin a new (and probably unnecessary) protocol name for it. ^-^

Nota bene: if you want to sell it to the hip youth, just call git
a blockchain for content -- which of course it totally is!

:.