<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px" class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="">"Decentralized means the system has no single point of failure or control
(SPoF). Another way to state this is: if any single element is removed from
{𝑆}, the system continues to perform its intended behavior, and no single
component in {𝑆} has the power to redefine 𝑓𝑆 on its own"</div></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">This is actually, in my view, a definition of a *distributed* system and is not what I think people normally mean by "decentralised"....</div></div></div></blockquote><div>I've always liked a definition that either Leslie Lamport or Butler Lampson came up with at DEC SRC: "A distributed system is one where a component I never heard of, hidden away somewhere, can keep me from getting my work done."</div><div><br class=""></div><div>Note that this is the opposite of the definition given here, where a single failure has no effect.</div><div><div> -- Jerry</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></div></body></html>