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I'm quite annoyed by the superficial critics that are currently overflowing the comments. Of course this is an ambitious project that is driven by (of course sl

I'm quite annoyed by the superficial critics that are currently overflowing the comments. Of course this is an ambitious project that is driven by (of course slow paced) academic research. This is very serious and is of course actively not giving a fuck about current mainstream trends in software engineering. It is technically ambitious: no-bullshit distributed systems are hard with the current Xcoin trends. GNUnet strives to imagine and implement a networking stack that is mostly friend-to-friend, eg a network where the topology is dictated by the real life trust relationships (just as most old low-level protocol did, think bgp). It wants to support delay-tolerant and low bandwidth networks that exist outside of our privileged western world, have privacy protections on the routing level, etc etc. It is politically ambitious since much of it is deeply anti-commercial, striving for local self-management (and that on several stacked levels). In particular it strives to have an architecture that defuses the network effect that comes with walled gardens. Applications built on top will probably do the exact opposite of the neuropsychology-based methods of drawing attention that is being used in almos every single mainstream private and free software web application. Imho there is limited value in reimplementing all these mechanisms like suggestions, notifications, infinite stream based information architecture (think mastodon) that have negative aspects on the content (superficial and intellectually aggressive content) and negative aspects as a tool (no decent archiving or information retrieval). So yeah, this is very much in progress, but GNUnet as a whole is currently federating a lot of academic (and non-academic but still very much based on experimental science methods) work, it's already a gold mine of papers, thesis, experimental protocols, foundations for radically different applications, etc. Please take the time to go deeper than just the front page, it is really worth the time (this is a website, not a marketing page, you have to actually explore it to understand what it's about).

jasode 7y ago
>I'm quite annoyed by the superficial critics that are currently overflowing the comments. Of course this is [...] academic research I'm guessing there would be less readers' irritation if the following text that's at the bottom was moved to the very top so it's the 1st thing people see: >secushare is a research project that hasn't reached prototype status, yet. [...] So if you truly want to get started with secushare, please read how you can help on the introduction page. Many readers would prefer that above text to be shown before the following paragraph which is structured as a "teaser": >Imagine Facebook, Whatsapp, Gmail and Skype rolled into one, without the centralized surveillance and control. Crazy? Well, it hasn't been tried before, at least not our way. So let's give it a try. The "let's give it a try" is actually a request for more "researchers" instead of "users". Instead of a beta or even alpha system to experiment with, the current status is that they need programmers to help build it from nothing to a prototype. There's nothing wrong with asking for help but it takes a whole page worth of text to get to that point. Even if a software project has moral goals, it doesn't mean readers will not be annoyed at the way the presentation's text is ordered from least important ("imagine if...") to most important ("not even a prototype"). The HN demographic is probably overwhelmingly working programmers instead of academics so they're already predisposed to prefer something concrete they can try out.
- dx87 7y ago
  The front page currently has articles about Finnish babies sleeping in cardboard boxes, and the benefits of sleeping with a weighted blanket. Just because there isn't something you can try, doesn't mean it's not interesting.
  - jasode 7y ago
    > Just because there isn't something you can try, doesn't mean it's not interesting. Please don't misrepresent what I actually wrote. I did not dismiss the project as not interesting. I made a very specific point in my reply to OP (lapinot) and the complaint of "superficial criticism": If one structures the project's landing page text so that it makes something sound promising at the top but then later reveal that the status is actually "not even prototype" at the bottom (after ~10+ minutes of reading), that "teaser" style of slow reveal is going to invite hostile criticism from some readers. (E.g. see this thread's other comments of "vaporware", "generic introduction on something that doesn't exist", and "this page uses a lot of words to explain almost nothing.") Yes, maybe those comments are unfair but consider if the text's obfuscated style of exposition triggered those responses. The lesson for project authors is: Yes, your project can have moral ethics, pursue ideals of privacy & decentralization, be "interesting", and other laudable goals, etc -- but you'll throw all that good will away if the project's text describing it disrespects your readers. There's nothing wrong with an interesting project that's looking for contributors to build something real.
- dvn0 7y ago
  Appreciate the feedback. There was never an intention to mislead. We can see how having a disclaimer upfront improves communication transparency, so we've change the front-page accordingly.
  - no_identd 7y ago
    I'll abuse this comment to ask: Have the GNUnet developers considered joining forces with the RINA developers? I feel extremely tired of Beads-on-a-String networking which essentially still boils down to phone calls with extra steps which we falsely label as somehow constituting an Inter-Network capable system, despite neither IPv4 nor IPv6 in any way actually supporting internetwork communication. RINA addresses this issue completely, but it doesn't address the privacy infrastructure GNUnet addresses.
turk73 7y ago
If you want freedom you have to work for it because government and corporations are conspiring to take all of it away. And I do mean ALL OF IT.
kerkeslager 7y ago
Thanks for writing this. Do you have any good starting points for someone interested in developing applications on GNUnet?
- antsoul 7y ago
  Read and follow the bug reports, specially this one : https://bugs.gnunet.org/view.php?id=4625 https://bugs.gnunet.org/view.php?id=4625
dorfsmay 7y ago
Can its network federate? Can you use a single identity across networks?
- johnisgood 7y ago
  https://secushare.org/federation https://secushare.org/federation https://secushare.org/architecture https://secushare.org/architecture In my opinion it is worth going over most if not all of the website's content. It is time-consuming, I know, but it is such a gold mine. There are links to other websites, too, and when I get the time I will open those links as well. So much useful information, so much to explore and learn! I love it.

jasode 7y ago

>I'm quite annoyed by the superficial critics that are currently overflowing the comments. Of course this is [...] academic research I'm guessing there would be less readers' irritation if the following text that's at the bottom was moved to the very top so it's the 1st thing people see: >secushare is a research project that hasn't reached prototype status, yet. [...] So if you truly want to get started with secushare, please read how you can help on the introduction page. Many readers would prefer that above text to be shown before the following paragraph which is structured as a "teaser": >Imagine Facebook, Whatsapp, Gmail and Skype rolled into one, without the centralized surveillance and control. Crazy? Well, it hasn't been tried before, at least not our way. So let's give it a try. The "let's give it a try" is actually a request for more "researchers" instead of "users". Instead of a beta or even alpha system to experiment with, the current status is that they need programmers to help build it from nothing to a prototype. There's nothing wrong with asking for help but it takes a whole page worth of text to get to that point. Even if a software project has moral goals, it doesn't mean readers will not be annoyed at the way the presentation's text is ordered from least important ("imagine if...") to most important ("not even a prototype"). The HN demographic is probably overwhelmingly working programmers instead of academics so they're already predisposed to prefer something concrete they can try out.

dx87 7y ago
The front page currently has articles about Finnish babies sleeping in cardboard boxes, and the benefits of sleeping with a weighted blanket. Just because there isn't something you can try, doesn't mean it's not interesting.
- jasode 7y ago
  > Just because there isn't something you can try, doesn't mean it's not interesting. Please don't misrepresent what I actually wrote. I did not dismiss the project as not interesting. I made a very specific point in my reply to OP (lapinot) and the complaint of "superficial criticism": If one structures the project's landing page text so that it makes something sound promising at the top but then later reveal that the status is actually "not even prototype" at the bottom (after ~10+ minutes of reading), that "teaser" style of slow reveal is going to invite hostile criticism from some readers. (E.g. see this thread's other comments of "vaporware", "generic introduction on something that doesn't exist", and "this page uses a lot of words to explain almost nothing.") Yes, maybe those comments are unfair but consider if the text's obfuscated style of exposition triggered those responses. The lesson for project authors is: Yes, your project can have moral ethics, pursue ideals of privacy & decentralization, be "interesting", and other laudable goals, etc -- but you'll throw all that good will away if the project's text describing it disrespects your readers. There's nothing wrong with an interesting project that's looking for contributors to build something real.
dvn0 7y ago
Appreciate the feedback. There was never an intention to mislead. We can see how having a disclaimer upfront improves communication transparency, so we've change the front-page accordingly.
- no_identd 7y ago
  I'll abuse this comment to ask: Have the GNUnet developers considered joining forces with the RINA developers? I feel extremely tired of Beads-on-a-String networking which essentially still boils down to phone calls with extra steps which we falsely label as somehow constituting an Inter-Network capable system, despite neither IPv4 nor IPv6 in any way actually supporting internetwork communication. RINA addresses this issue completely, but it doesn't address the privacy infrastructure GNUnet addresses.

turk73 7y ago

If you want freedom you have to work for it because government and corporations are conspiring to take all of it away. And I do mean ALL OF IT.

kerkeslager 7y ago

Thanks for writing this. Do you have any good starting points for someone interested in developing applications on GNUnet?

antsoul 7y ago
Read and follow the bug reports, specially this one : https://bugs.gnunet.org/view.php?id=4625 https://bugs.gnunet.org/view.php?id=4625

dorfsmay 7y ago

Can its network federate? Can you use a single identity across networks?

johnisgood 7y ago
https://secushare.org/federation https://secushare.org/federation https://secushare.org/architecture https://secushare.org/architecture In my opinion it is worth going over most if not all of the website's content. It is time-consuming, I know, but it is such a gold mine. There are links to other websites, too, and when I get the time I will open those links as well. So much useful information, so much to explore and learn! I love it.