This should have gone to the list… sorry for the delay. ---------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht ----------
Hi,
I think there is one feature which works really well and which we are
horribly underselling: darknet node-to-node messages. They provide
confidential communication between friends, masked by Freenet traffic,
and as sideproduct give access to all of Freenet. I only came to
really appreciate them since my own paranoia reached the level of not
communicating freely by email anymore. I don’t want to provide the
metadata anymore.
N2N messages are a really strange mix: One the one hand they are
wonderfully integrated with bookmarks, downloads and uploads (share
with friends), but on the other hand they have such a horrid interface
that they actually provide both sent and received time but not the
notes about the contact, and deleting one reloads the site, so you
have to delete them one-by-one. It’s as if someone had slapped
debugging features on the general interface but left out basic
convenience.
Instead of kickstarter we could simply go for indiegogo. They allow
free software communities. But still that’s a lot of work.
For redoing stuff, I think what we are missing is not a full rewrite
of anything, but rather lots of polish. Going over the interface and
fixing everything which throws people off. For example finally getting
rid of the non-working search box…
There’s one quote which showed me better than any other how Freenet
fails. I got it via IRC, from a qwebirc* in #freenet:
»I have Freenet running now. What can I do with it?«
I have a hard time thinking of any quote which better embodies the
definition of utter user interface failure.
For the website: I think we could do with a “get Freenet” site
(get.freenetproject.org). There we could use innovative design without
having to keep feature-parity with the current site.
The fundraising for which I’m checking the possibility[1] is limited
by my own requirements: I can’t do half-year projects, because I have
a family to support and so I can’t just scoff at long-term viability,
and I know that funding less than 3 people wouldn’t give the dynamic
needed to get results in time. There is quite a bit of interest for
the stuff Freenet has to offer, but it’s hard to get money. If you can
help spreading the word about that, this could help a lot.
Best wishes,
Arne
[1]: http://draketo.de/proj/freenet-funding/ "Freenet for Journalists"
Am Sonntag, 16. November 2014, 10:36:12 schrieb Ian Clarke:
> Hi Matthew,
>
> I agree that unless we get some kind of windfall in funding we should
> probably reserve current funds for Xor. Would working as a Google Summer
> of Code student provide you with sufficient income?
>
> What do you think are the major items on the Freenet to-do list over the
> next 6-12 months, and what would be the impact?
>
> It seems like the project needs an injection of enthusiasm, aggressive
> fundraising, and perhaps new ideas. We should be perfect for Kickstarter,
> but putting together a good kickstarter campaign requires effort and skill
> (putting together a good video, etc). It would also need to be for
> specific user-visible things, rather than just a general "make Freenet
> better".
>
> So perhaps revamping our website (it looks pretty dated and have noticed a
> few comments from people online about how this could be holding the project
> back), maybe redoing our UI using some more modern JavaScript libraries
> like Bootstrap and AngularJS.
>
> Unfortunately, my day-job has become increasingly demanding, and my work on
> Freenet has been limited to routine administrative tasks like filing taxes
> and paying xor. But I think if we can come up with a plan then I will make
> time to do my part. Hopefully some-day one of my entrepreneurial schemes
> will allow me to make enough money that I can fund Freenet personally, but
> that's definitely not a near-term strategy :)
>
> We're in an interesting situation. The world finally appears to really
> care about the things that Freenet has been about from the very beginning a
> decade and a half ago (most of the publicity back then viewed Freenet
> through the prism of Napster and copyright infringement). People finally
> care about anonymity, privacy, government monitoring, etc. We should be
> able to capitalize on this but it will take work.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Ian.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 12:06 PM, Matthew Toseland <mj...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > Should I plan on the assumption that Freenet won't have much money left
> > this summer? Last year it was a reasonable assumption that we'd have
> > capital, because of the massive increase in the value of our bitcoins
> > and because xor wasn't working for most of that year. Hence whether I
> > worked for Freenet or for some evil corporation (probably barely
> > covering my costs, but better on my CV) was entirely up to me. This year
> > it is looking much more doubtful...
> >
> > There's plenty I could work on. However xor is eating into our bitcoins
> > at a reasonable rate now. This is a good thing - his work is important,
> > and I'm glad we have a full-timer at the moment. I didn't CC him as I
> > don't want to put him off; there were times when I was working on
> > Freenet when my morale, and the number of hours I worked, were affected
> > by perceived lack of funding.
> >
> > Historically, we suck at crowd-funding. But that may be a matter of lack
> > of expertise; it is possible to do much better, especially if the core
> > product is notably improved (which it should be, just by deploying
> > existing code and p0s making some progress). Granted stuff like
> > Kickstarter exploits irrational selfish impulses with e.g. merchandise,
> > has a very high startup cost, raises relatively small amounts mostly
> > (compared to e.g. Arne's proposals), and basically is a distributed
> > business incubator; it's really an investment, you ultimately have to
> > make a profit. Plus Kickstarter prohibits social networks, though others
> > may not.
> >
> > There were lots of opportunities to get government/major-non-profit
> > funding which we largely squandered, and which may be much harder now...
> > But there may still be options, especially if we can propose a definite
> > project, e.g. implementing a really good darknet or tunnels system ...
> >
> > ArneBab has been working on this stuff ... ???
> >
> > The other thing for my purposes is I might be able to do my Bachelor's
> > project next year on something Freenet-related, although obviously there
> > are constraints on that in terms of it being self-contained, having
> > enough (not necessarily original) theory, restrictions on collaboration
> > etc ...
> >
> > Basically, it looks like I should assume that Freenet won't have the
> > funds to pay me to work full time this summer? It might be possible to
> > plan a specific project and raise funds for it, but given that I'd need
> > to apply for commercial internships in the fairly near future, it's
> > looking pretty doubtful?
> >
> >
>
>
>
--
Ich hab' nichts zu verbergen – hab ich gedacht:
- http://draketo.de/licht/lieder/ich-hab-nichts-zu-verbergen
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