July 3 – July 4
Theory and Practice of Decentralized and Local-First Software
The 5th workshop on Theory and Practice of Decentralized and Local-First Software is a joint effort combining two workshops from previous years: PLF (Programming Local-first Software) and PLAID (Principles, Theory, and Practice for Decentralized Applications). The two workshops had significant overlap in their topics, and we aim at bringing together their communities of researchers and practitioners. Submissions suitable for either of the earlier workshops are well-suited for PLF+PLAID.
About
Ubiquitous connectivity and the affordable availability of user devices, ranging from smartphones to desktops, have made applications that support multi-device and collaborative use increasingly common. These devices and the networks they belong to possess vastly different characteristics. Data centres offer nearly unlimited resources and high availability, while edge devices often have limited resources, experience frequent connectivity loss, and display significant dynamism; shifting away from the cloud enables the use of edge resources, with potential benefits in terms of privacy and costs. In this scenario, collaborative applications must be decentralized; Local-First Software operates and stores its data locally while still allowing for collaboration, without dependence on the cloud.
Several specific solutions already exist for designing and programming decentralized and local-first software, but the task remains difficult. Our workshop aims to gather researchers and practitioners and their insights to the theoretical and practical challenges of developing decentralized applications in today’s computing ecosystems, fostering the research and development of suitable solutions in this area.
The PLF+PLAID 2025 is organised during the ECOOP 2025 that will be hosted by the Software Engineering research group at the Høgskulen på Vestlandet (Western Norway University of Applied Sciences) in Bergen, Norway.