Is Viewstamped Replication the same as Paxos, according to Barbara Liskov?

Yes. Barbara Liskov says her Viewstamped Replication and Leslie Lamport's Paxos are essentially the same idea, developed independently without the two ever working together. There are small technical differences in the details, but she calls them basically the same system.

• The view number is a simple incrementing count, not a clock, used to find which nodes hold the most recent state after a failure.
• When the Google File System appeared, a former Liskov student consulting at Google recognised Viewstamped Replication in what Google called Paxos.

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on Ryan Peterman (2026-10-28). Read the whole episode summary →

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