Theory and Practice of Decentralized and Local-First SoftwarePLF+PLAID 2025

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.

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 near-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.

Invited Speakers

• TBA

Call for Papers

We encourage talk proposals related to the theory and practice of programming decentralized and local-first software. Talk proposals can be about new, existing, or in-progress work. We are particularly keen on fostering the dialogue between industry and academia. The talk topics include (but are not limited to):

• development methods and tools
• programming language design and implementation
• static and dynamic verification techniques
• consensus in decentralized environments
• decentralized data indexing, querying, and searching
• security, safety, and trust
• performance and scalability
• case studies, best practices, and experience reports

Talks will be scheduled for roughly 15 minutes + 15 minutes of questions and discussion. Submitted talk proposals can be at most 2 pages long (using any 1-column page formatting style of your choice), and they must outline:

• the title, content, and scope of the talk
• the context (speaker, company, research group, larger project, etc.)
• optionally, appendices or links with further information (e.g. existing paper or draft, prior talks, project websites, etc.)

See the right sidebar for the submission link and important dates.