Re: the right to rewrite history to rectify the past (was Re: Concerns/questions around Software Heritage Archive)

[pinoaffe]

Giovanni Biscuolo <g@xelera.eu> writes:
> [...]
> pinoaffe <pinoaffe@gmail.com> writes:
>> - should examine possible workarounds going forward,
>> - should move towards something like UUIDs and petnames in the long run.
>>
>> (see https://spritelyproject.org/news/petname-systems.html).
>
> I don't understand how using petnames, uuids or even a re:claimID
> identity (see below) could solve the problem with "rewriting history" in
> case a person wishes to change his or her previous _published_ name
> (petname, uuid...) in an archived content-addressable storage system.
It would decouple "name" from "identity as represented in the git merkle
tree", thus allowing name changes to occur without affecting hashes and
the like.  I see no possible reason for UUID changes, as UUIDs (by
themself) are not personally identifying.  This of course would not
allow retroactive splitting/merging of identities, but I feel like
permitting that is incompatible with the idea of identities anyhow.

> As a side note, other than the "petname system" please also consider
> re:claimID from GNUnet:
> https://www.gnunet.org/en/reclaim/index.html
> https://www.gnunet.org/en/reclaim/motivation.html

Sure, I'll take a look

kind regards,
pinoaffe