On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 3:28 PM, Michael Rogers <m.rogers at cs.ucl.ac.uk> wrote: >>> That would be a very valuable system, I just don't see what it's got to >>> do with Freenet. >> >> Ummm, the fact that it would be a routable small world darknet? > > That's an assumption, not a fact. As far as I know there's little reason > to assume that the contact graphs of clandestine political organisations > are routable small worlds, let alone to assume that the combined contact > graph of several diverse organisations is a routable small world.
Well, I think they might be a routable small world, but even if they are it doesn't follow that this "sneakernet" functionality should be part of freenet. I've heard a few people refer to Freenet as "bloatware", and frankly, given that 10MB of the install consists of client apps that really don't need to be bundled with Freenet, I can see why. People would think it was dumb if the JRE bundled LimeWire, although most would agree that its reasonable for LimeWire to bundle the JRE (at least as an option). Of course people could say "oh, but the JRE bundling LimeWire makes it easier for users because they don't need to install LimeWire separately now!". Or maybe they say "but we want people to use LimeWire, so its good that the JRE bundles it!". Of course no reasonable person would buy either of those arguments as it relates to the JRE and LimeWire, yet I've heard similar arguments used to justify bundling apps like Thaw and jSite with Freenet. We need to get away from this idea that we are somehow helping users by bundling all of these client apps with Freenet. We aren't Ubuntu! I propose removing jSite, Thaw, and any other bundled apps from the Freenet distro, which should significantly reduce the amount of downloading required. I do agree that bundling can make user's lives easier, but it should be >>client apps bundling Freenet<<, not the other way around. Ian. -- Email: ian at uprizer.com Cell: +1 512 422 3588 Skype: sanity
