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Am i the only one who gets irked by having to read half an article of "how you should feel about this" crap to get an answer to the "WTF is this and how it work

by Artlav 10y ago

Am i the only one who gets irked by having to read half an article of "how you should feel about this" crap to get an answer to the "WTF is this and how it works" question, which should have taken one line at the start? Anyway, i find the title odd, because at the end of things it's still plugged into the Telefonica/Comcast/Whatever. So, what's the point? This basically describes a community/small-business ISP, nothing special.

hkmurakami 10y ago
My take away was "how to structure a feel good PR piece". Not an unuseful reference to have.
untog 10y ago
Consider audience. Not everything posted to HN was written with HN in mind. This might be aimed at a much less technically-oriented group of people.
hoorayimhelping 10y ago
No. Every time an article in this form is posted, near the top is someone mentioning they're not a fan of the format.
kilburn 10y ago
Obviously the article is not targeted to a technical audience. A quick summary: - guifi.net (you can visit the website for more info) is a non-profit foundation to support the development of an open, user-owned network. - Users, alone or by groups buy networking gear (nodes) that connects them to other nodes. - The result is a mesh network between all those nodes. Guifi.net develops and mantains (free-software based) software to manage the network. They have a website that centralizes information, manages the private IP space, and provides firmwares for the supported gear. - The network may be used for any purpose. If you want to build a VPN between two physical locations that both have guifi.net connevtivity you don't need to go to public internet. Aside from maintaining the networking gear, there are no fees either. - Getting internet connectivity is possible. You "just" need someone giving you an "exit gateway. This can be a friend with guifi.net connectivity AND a traditional telefonica/comcast connection. You can also buy internet access directly from the carriers at the CatNIX peering center (the foundation has laid out fiber connecting to that exchange). I don't know the fees. It is a cool project, but I can see how users can get unhappy if they pay for a node under the premise of "free connectivity" only to find themselves on a (quite large) private mesh network.

by Artlav 10y ago

hkmurakami 10y ago

My take away was "how to structure a feel good PR piece". Not an unuseful reference to have.

untog 10y ago

Consider audience. Not everything posted to HN was written with HN in mind. This might be aimed at a much less technically-oriented group of people.

hoorayimhelping 10y ago

No. Every time an article in this form is posted, near the top is someone mentioning they're not a fan of the format.

kilburn 10y ago

Obviously the article is not targeted to a technical audience. A quick summary: - guifi.net (you can visit the website for more info) is a non-profit foundation to support the development of an open, user-owned network. - Users, alone or by groups buy networking gear (nodes) that connects them to other nodes. - The result is a mesh network between all those nodes. Guifi.net develops and mantains (free-software based) software to manage the network. They have a website that centralizes information, manages the private IP space, and provides firmwares for the supported gear. - The network may be used for any purpose. If you want to build a VPN between two physical locations that both have guifi.net connevtivity you don't need to go to public internet. Aside from maintaining the networking gear, there are no fees either. - Getting internet connectivity is possible. You "just" need someone giving you an "exit gateway. This can be a friend with guifi.net connectivity AND a traditional telefonica/comcast connection. You can also buy internet access directly from the carriers at the CatNIX peering center (the foundation has laid out fiber connecting to that exchange). I don't know the fees. It is a cool project, but I can see how users can get unhappy if they pay for a node under the premise of "free connectivity" only to find themselves on a (quite large) private mesh network.