One public network
The Bigfoot Network is one public network for publishing and finding information on the web. Posts, replies, and other records published to it are public, and every Bigfoot app reads from the same network.
The network is made up of computers called nodes. Every node follows the same protocol: the shared rules that decide what the network accepts and how records are stored and passed on.
Who looks after the protocol
Soliton Group LLC is the current steward of the Bigfoot protocol. The steward maintains the protocol and its official software, and operates the routers that help devices join the network. Routers do not carry records or see what people do on the network. The steward does not operate the network itself, and it cannot remove, change, or recall records people publish to it.
Bigfoot Governance describes how stewardship and network governance fit together.
Why published records can’t be removed
Bigfoot is a hybrid network. Independent nodes store the records people publish, and the network also keeps a shared history of everything it has accepted, signed by its validators. That history holds a fingerprint of each record, and every node keeps its own copy of the history and checks it.
Each record is stored on several nodes. A copy that has been changed no longer matches its fingerprint, so other nodes and the apps that read it reject it. The history has no way to take a record back out, and a node that rewrote its own copy of the history would no longer agree with the rest of the network.
If a node goes offline or loses a copy, the network notices and makes a new copy on another node automatically. Once the network has accepted a record, no one can remove it: not the steward, not a node operator, and not the person who published it.
Public and permanent
Everything published to the Bigfoot Network is public. There are no private posts, groups, or messages, and there is no way to delete a post.
Editing a post publishes a new version that points back to the one it replaces. The earlier version isn’t deleted or changed, and it stays on the network.
Everything you publish is signed with your network identity, so anything published under the same identity can be linked together. Once something is on the network, anyone can read it, copy it, and keep it. Be deliberate about what you publish, especially personal information about yourself or anyone else.
Reading works differently. Requests to read records travel through two relays, so the node that answers a request doesn’t learn who asked for it.
What official apps show
Official Bigfoot apps may hide specific records where the law requires it. Hiding a record in an app doesn’t remove it: the record itself stays on the network.
Governance members
Governance members are volunteers who decide who takes on certain network roles. They vote to admit and remove footnote reviewers, validators, and other governance members.
That is the whole of their role. Governance members cannot remove, change, or hide records, and they don’t set the protocol’s rules. The governance member guide explains how applications and votes work.
Running a node
Nodes store and relay the network’s records. A node’s operator decides whether to run it and how much storage to offer, but not what it carries: the network assigns each node its records and its work, and the node software carries them out.
The node operator guide explains what that means for operators.
The official software
Soliton Group LLC publishes the official Bigfoot software: Bigfoot Browser, Bigfoot Node, and the Bigfoot Footnotes Client. It is provided as is, and each product’s license agreement has the details: the Bigfoot Browser EULA, the Bigfoot Node EULA, and the Bigfoot Footnotes Client EULA.