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This is very unfortunate piece of technology. And I'm not saying this ironically. This is the type of technology that will benefit the most number of people if

This is very unfortunate piece of technology. And I'm not saying this ironically. This is the type of technology that will benefit the most number of people if open sourced, but despite what these guys call themselves ("Open"garden), it's not open at all. I'm guessing it's because they've already raised near $13MM https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/open-garden https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/open-garden and they can't afford to just let go of the tech (I'm guessing they're probably hoping at this point to get acquired by some large company for their tech, but not even sure if they have a patent-worthy tech since I'm guessing they use iOS and Android API underneath) If they didn't raise this much money they could have made the decision to just open it up if they really think this will change the world. As much as I hate ICOs, I would like to see this type of tech being open sourced and the creators trying to make money with open protocols rather than getting stuck in the old mindset of trying to make money by petty licensing in the age of open source. Also, note that there's a better alternative if you're trying to implement near field P2P AND you're OK with using someone else's proprietary tech https://developers.google.com/nearby/connections/overview https://developers.google.com/nearby/connections/overview I looked into this field a while ago and found that there's nothing out there that's completely open. For a genre of technology that claims to liberate communication, it's super ironic how it's the opposite.

tetraca 9y ago
Man, spearheading a FOSS project that could do this would be a dream, but I struggle having enough time to tinker as it is.
westbywest 9y ago
Indeed, my understanding is that neither iOS or Android provide reasonable access to adhoc or 802.11s modes on their wifi chipset. I gather MeshKit is deploying its mesh topology through tunnels, somewhat abstracted from whichever phy.
marknadal 9y ago
We have tackled a protocol to solve ad-hoc mesh network data transmission in P2P environments. It is MIT/ZLIB/Apache2 Open Source licensed: https://github.com/amark/gun https://github.com/amark/gun I explain how the P2P logic works in this tech talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fCPRY-9hkc&t=3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fCPRY-9hkc&t=3s We also have end-to-end encryption now working: https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/auth https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/auth What we're missing, is we need adapters for Bluetooth, etc. Andre Staltz (of CyclesJS fame) has already added React Native bindings ( https://github.com/staltz/gun-asyncstorage https://github.com/staltz/gun-asyncstorage ), which I'm hoping some of those tools (like Phonegap, Nativescript) have bridges for Bluetooth?
- BuildTheRobots 9y ago
  That was a fantastic talk; thank you for the link. For anyone else confused (it might just have been me) but the URL is correct, title of the talk is "Nordic.js 2017 • Mark Nadal - The Design and Evolution of Event-Driven Databases" or "How to build a global scale, P2P, mesh network?"
  - marknadal 9y ago
    That is an honor to hear, thank you for the feedback. :) :) Was there anything I didn't address, or didn't have time to go into more detail on, that I can answer for you?
    - BuildTheRobots 9y ago
      I have to be honest, for an idiot like me it was absolutely perfect. Here's what we're trying to achieve, why we're trying to achieve it and some nice blocks that work towards doing that (with the idea that you make them modular enough and can bypass them). I can only imagine a real world implementation ends up having all the edge cases in the world, but you gave me a great insight into what some of them are likely to be :)
spraak 9y ago
The ideal would be a company with funding that releases an open source product. None of the open source technologies that are community driven have taken off, to my awareness.
- cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
  You have to realize that all these BigCo driven open source projects are really exploitation. I would rather see an ICO model--where the community funds the protocol, like FileCoin or Ethereum--succeed than Google or Facebook taking advantage of the naive developers.
  - nerdponx 9y ago
    You have to realize that all these BigCo driven open source projects are really exploitation. In what way? Other than Android and maybe Chromium, what open-source products are exploitative?
mkstowegnv 9y ago
There is also Gotenna [1] and numerous projects mentioned on Wikipedia mesh networking pages [2, 3] This would be a perfect application for "Shadow Dance" - a long shot project to create futuristic festivals inside the shadow path of total solar eclipses including multimillion person human chains (see the technical proposal - particuarly page 7 - [4]). The idea came too late for the August eclipse but our group is planning and hoping for the Mexico US Canada eclipse in 2024 - (the website and the proposal is in the process of being rewritten accordngly) 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoTenna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoTenna 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networking 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network 4 https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5eQ1ipl4xCDQVF6ajVNalg3Wjg/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5eQ1ipl4xCDQVF6ajVNalg3Wjg...

tetraca 9y ago

Man, spearheading a FOSS project that could do this would be a dream, but I struggle having enough time to tinker as it is.

westbywest 9y ago

Indeed, my understanding is that neither iOS or Android provide reasonable access to adhoc or 802.11s modes on their wifi chipset. I gather MeshKit is deploying its mesh topology through tunnels, somewhat abstracted from whichever phy.

marknadal 9y ago

We have tackled a protocol to solve ad-hoc mesh network data transmission in P2P environments. It is MIT/ZLIB/Apache2 Open Source licensed: https://github.com/amark/gun https://github.com/amark/gun I explain how the P2P logic works in this tech talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fCPRY-9hkc&t=3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fCPRY-9hkc&t=3s We also have end-to-end encryption now working: https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/auth https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/auth What we're missing, is we need adapters for Bluetooth, etc. Andre Staltz (of CyclesJS fame) has already added React Native bindings ( https://github.com/staltz/gun-asyncstorage https://github.com/staltz/gun-asyncstorage ), which I'm hoping some of those tools (like Phonegap, Nativescript) have bridges for Bluetooth?

BuildTheRobots 9y ago
That was a fantastic talk; thank you for the link. For anyone else confused (it might just have been me) but the URL is correct, title of the talk is "Nordic.js 2017 • Mark Nadal - The Design and Evolution of Event-Driven Databases" or "How to build a global scale, P2P, mesh network?"
- marknadal 9y ago
  That is an honor to hear, thank you for the feedback. :) :) Was there anything I didn't address, or didn't have time to go into more detail on, that I can answer for you?
  - BuildTheRobots 9y ago
    I have to be honest, for an idiot like me it was absolutely perfect. Here's what we're trying to achieve, why we're trying to achieve it and some nice blocks that work towards doing that (with the idea that you make them modular enough and can bypass them). I can only imagine a real world implementation ends up having all the edge cases in the world, but you gave me a great insight into what some of them are likely to be :)

spraak 9y ago

The ideal would be a company with funding that releases an open source product. None of the open source technologies that are community driven have taken off, to my awareness.

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
You have to realize that all these BigCo driven open source projects are really exploitation. I would rather see an ICO model--where the community funds the protocol, like FileCoin or Ethereum--succeed than Google or Facebook taking advantage of the naive developers.
- nerdponx 9y ago
  You have to realize that all these BigCo driven open source projects are really exploitation. In what way? Other than Android and maybe Chromium, what open-source products are exploitative?

mkstowegnv 9y ago

There is also Gotenna [1] and numerous projects mentioned on Wikipedia mesh networking pages [2, 3] This would be a perfect application for "Shadow Dance" - a long shot project to create futuristic festivals inside the shadow path of total solar eclipses including multimillion person human chains (see the technical proposal - particuarly page 7 - [4]). The idea came too late for the August eclipse but our group is planning and hoping for the Mexico US Canada eclipse in 2024 - (the website and the proposal is in the process of being rewritten accordngly) 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoTenna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoTenna 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networking 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network 4 https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5eQ1ipl4xCDQVF6ajVNalg3Wjg/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5eQ1ipl4xCDQVF6ajVNalg3Wjg...