A proposal to implement indefinite terms for FIL+ data cap allocations, independent of storage deals, realising a controlled version of FIL+ Forever.
Terminology
Allowance: data cap provided to a verifier by the root, or to a client by a verifier.
Allocation: data cap allocated by a client to a specific piece of data.
Term: period of time for which a sector/deal/allocation is active or valid.
Claim: a provider’s assertion they are storing all or part of an allocation
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A FIL+ data cap allocation doesn’t have any intrinsic term. An allocation is currently bounded in time only because (a) allocation claims are made via deals, (b) we don’t support deals longer than a sector’s life, and (c) a sector has a maximum lifespan . When we either decouple FIL+ from the market actor (to enable alternative markets) or enable renewal/extensibility/transfer of deals, deal terms will no longer constrain the data cap term.
By leaning in to this idea we can both (1) simplify the concepts and implementation of quality-adjusted power, resolving most of the challenges that motivate the ‣ proposal; and (2) take a simple path for implementation of Architecture for programmable storage markets.
Related: FIL+ term limits is a (partial) design for enforcing arbitrary explicit term limits, which this design draws some parts from.
These ideas build toward the Architecture for programmable storage markets, which will eventually remove the market actor from intermediating FIL+ deals. In doing so, it breaks the linkage of the verified data to the term of the deal negotiated by the client. The power and rewards associated with FIL+ data cap instead can have a term independent of any deal for a client to pay for a particular storage period.
This proposal is a mechanism for removing FIL+ term limits in the context of the existing built-in actors, especially the storage market. This makes it a change that we could release to the network prior to the larger re-architecture for programmable markets. Alternatively, we could bundle this along with a larger architectural change (probably less total effort).