Why We Went Open Source With MEDIA Protocol

Choosing to make our protocol available to developers and creators as open source code was an easy decision. It means the code is available under a Commons Licence, so it can be used, copied and modified. In fact it’s already out there on GitHub with all its documentation. And it’s security audited as well.

Why Open Source?

As CEO James Tabor asked in a recent AMA, “Can a truly decentralised project be anything but open source?”

Making MEDIA Protocol open source is completely in keeping with the spirit and ethos of blockchain. There was barely a decision to make. Opening the code up to thousands of potential developers and creators allows for experimentation and innovation. As James said, “you cannot foster innovation by constraining ownership of core protocol. There can be a million and one applications and without encouraging experimentation and open source we would end up repeating the issues with owned code.”

Constraining ownership and being proprietary about the building blocks of the protocol would simply be repeating the mistakes of the past, where existing systems moved onto new technology and tried to throttle anything but their preferred methods. For example: print media moving online and how they monetised through paywalls.

Won’t The Developers Just Profit?

Yes, the products and projects created by these innovators may be proprietary once they’re created, and potentially generate revenue. At the same time those creators will have expanded and even improved the source code. Everyone benefits.

This allows users to shake things up and find a model that works for the protocol, rather than imposing old ones on it for the sake of gaining control. It stays decentralised this way.

How Does It Work?

As an example, MEDIA Protocol created CryptoCatnip. As well as a fully functioning dApp, it’s also a use case to show the potential of harnessing the protocol and building on it.

Of course, that’s just one way of developing. There’s room to build similar but better, or completely different applications that run on MEDIA Protocol. Any and all variations are possible, and welcome.

MEDIA Protocol And Open Source

In keeping with our ethos of encouraging, inspiring, and rewarding creators, MEDIA Protocol is available to all. We look forward to the innovative and unique projects that this will inspire, making MEDIA Protocol projects even more diverse and useful going forward.

For more information regarding MEDIA Protocol find us on our social channels below:

Website: www.mediaprotocol.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MEDIAProtocol
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MEDIA_Protocol
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/media-protocol/
Telegram: https://t.me/Media_Protocol_Community and https://t.me/MP_Announcements
Medium: https://medium.com/@mediaprotocolsm
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MEDIAProtocol