A Distributed Data Community: Introducing the New Dat Website
Now, more than ever, we must fight together for an open web. With the threat of a privatized web, we strive for a true web of commons — a combination of new technologies and a publicly supported, human-driven community. Starting today, the Dat Project website will shift to emphasize the open Dat Protocol and our community, with continued support from our nonprofit, Code for Science & Society. We want everyone to use Dat!
The Dat Project imagines a future of the internet created by global communities on open and secure protocols. Imagine it with us.
The web is becoming locked inside monopoly-owned platforms, risking user-data privacy, providing surveillance tools, and stifling the flow of public knowledge. Even in communities seeking to contribute and share public data, the technical boundaries of legacy protocols and privatized infrastructure make it impossible. Developers who want to create change are hindered by similar problems, as our team has experienced while building innovative open data tools.
After years of iteration and user feedback, compelled by our needs for public data sharing, we created a new and open protocol — the Dat Protocol. The Dat Protocol builds on our experiences in public data archiving, research data management, and distributed file sharing. Modeled after the best parts of Git, BitTorrent, and the Internet, we created a peer-to-peer protocol for syncing files and data across distributed networks. With built-in encryption, private-by-default data, and wide interoperability, we believe the Dat protocol can "lock the web open" [^1].
Creating a new public commons requires human-centered technology with a strong community backing. We must empower an inclusive community that aims to create fair, user-focused applications in order to be successful. We believe that not-for-profit and community-driven public technology infrastructure will be the future of the open web. The Dat community has begun to realize that future and we want to give them all the support we can.
Dat Project started with a new vision for open data and it will continue to be central to our mission. We are excited to keep pushing the Dat Protocol forward through open data tools, now at datbase.org.
Join us in building a community to shepherd the future of the web. Learn more about the Dat at datproject.org. Follow us on Twitter, @dat_project, to stay updated.