#FreeDOM - a Decentralized Web Framework

• Name : Raymond Cheng
• Twitter : @RaymondCheng00
• Github : ryscheng
• Website : [http://raymondcheng.net][]

##Abstract

Free and open source web frameworks have played a crucial role in catalyzing innovative new applications on the Web. However, under the current SaaS model, free software developers who want to build on top of these frameworks have to solve the problem of logistics, a challenging and expensive situation if you want to offer the high availability and scalability users have come to expect. In this world if you write a popular app, you may lose a little money. If you write a viral app, you may need to sell your kidney.

In this talk, I will answer the question: “What does it mean to write free web apps?”. In a world of rich multi-user global-scale distributed web apps, free software developers who want to write browser-facing code need some help. I will propose a new model for web app development that challenges the way we think about web apps. FreeDOM is a new web framework that cleaves the meat of complex web services from the hardware where the data is stored and the code is executed. As a research project, FreeDOM takes a new stab at making aggregate global service highly available, self-scaling, automatically federated, secure, and easy-to-use. We are on track to make free software as convenient as a typical SaaS web app. By giving more power to the end-user of a web app, FreeDOM has profound implications on free software distribution as well as privacy in the age of the Web.

##Speaker Bio

Raymond Cheng is a Ph.D. student at the Computer Science and Engineering department in the University of Washington. His research focuses on building novel distributed systems that enhance the rights of Internet users, including systems for free speech, user privacy, and free software. He has also previously worked in the fields of peer-to-peer communications, datacenters, machine learning, and optics. Prior to graduate school, he completed his B.S. in Physics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. In his free time, Ray air guitars to Phoenix - "Trying to Be Cool".