Project

How did the LibreWeb project started? And how will the future look like?

History

Intro

Insipired by Douglas Engelbart, Tim Berners-Lee and Ted Nelson. Ted created a Hypertext markup language (HTML). Tim proposed an information management system, created a client-server implementation using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). We all know this now as the World Wide Web.

It’s important to understand that not all the ideas of the people mentioned above are actually implemented as they envisioned.
This is where IPFS and LibreWeb comes into play.

History of LibreWeb

LibreWeb project started in 2014. LibreWeb initially wanted to change the Internet topology by building a large mesh network with routers and/or specialized long-range WiFi hardware. Giving you an alternative Internet connection, but was foreseen to be difficult to scale. Also in the meanwhile better alternatives will become possible; like the Starlink project from Elon Musk.

So in 2020 we changed our course and our goals. Instead LibreWeb now focuses towards a decentralized web stack (building on top of IPFS). Enabling users (yes, you) to easily surf the decentralized web as well as publish their content/sites on LibreWeb. Removing the underlying complexity from the end-users.

See also:

Roadmap

We are using GitLab Milestones to track the roadmap features/epics of the project and their priority. If you find a specific issue important to you, you can prioritize that issue by giving it a “thumbs up”.

Mission statement

The mission of LibreWeb is to create a fully decentralized web & web-browser, build on top of IPFS. Allowing users to easily surf the decentralized web as well as publish content on the decentralized web.

Software Development

Our source-code is hosted on GitLab, which consists of multiple projects.

The main project is the LibreWeb Browser repository, see also:

Success criteria

The following success criteria has been identified from the beginning:

  • Decentralized: No single-point of failure or censorship by governments. Data is stored redundantly, no client-server;
  • Easy: Everyone should be able to browse the decentralized web and create their own site/blog/news page and publish the content via an built-in editor (no technical knowledge required);
  • Encrypted network: Sensitive data should be encrypted by default (eg. AES 4096-bit RSA private/public key-pair);
  • Versioning: Revisions of content documents, never have broken links;
  • Fully featured sites: Publisher should be able to add multiple pages as well as add additional meta data (like title, desc, weight). Similar to Hugo or Jekyll static-site generators;
  • Human-readable source code: Use Markdown as source-code which is easy to understand and type. Markdown can also be extended with additional features;
  • Visitor is in control: The visitors are in control, they can individually change their look & feel or style of the content (just like with e-books);
  • Content is King: Content-first approach, no flashy ad banners, web animations or JavaScript pop-ups anymore;
  • Fast & Extensible: LibreWeb Browser should be fast and easily extensible.

Research

LibreWeb has a dedicated Research Lab project. This is a place for experiments, research and prototypes. We make dediciations based on facts, before rolling-out new ideas.

LibreWeb is using the IPFS stack to accelerate the decentralized web movement.

Contribute to LibreWeb

People can contribute to LibreWeb from all over the world - and that can include you.

LibreWeb is a decentralized Internet alternative, make a better decentralized world by contributing to LibreWeb.