Re: [freenet-dev] Proposal for a democratic process to efficiently allocate resources (including the $25k)

[Ian Clarke]

On Tue, May 3, 2016 3:03 PM, Arne Babenhauserheide arne_...@web.de wrote:The 
intro shows values from 1 to 100, the later description uses 1 to

1000.




Oops, fixed.




I do not think 1000 points are useful in terms of limited
volunteer time resources. How about making it 20? This then requires

explicitly *not* putting any value on certain tasks, which is the most

important decision to take here: What do we *not* need to do right now?




Well, one important component of the allocation process is to start with an even
allocation of points between all tasks, which discourages people from just
picking one or two favorite tasks and putting all of their points in those
tasks. Depending on how many tasks we have, 20 points might not be sufficient
for this. But perhaps 100 is a better number, we can decide once we see how many
tasks we get.


As cost-metric I would suggest using full-time person-weeks.

The problem is that some things we could allocate resources to might be, say,
paying $600 for 99designs to come up with a new web design (just an example).
Unless we have a common measure of cost for everything we won't be able to
compare them. Currency is a good lowest-common-denominator, everything else
should be expressible in terms of currency with some reasonable assumptions.
- We have money for ~20 of these. That’s a number we can easily handle.
- Cost is very different from salary (by roughly factor 2). Time isn’t.

- Any feature which looks like it could be implemented in one day is

likely implementable within one week.

- $5000 sounds like a lot. But it’s just 4 full-time person-weeks for

the people who already know about Freenet — others would have to get

into the code first, so the price per feature would be similar.

- There is no task which is worth the time to describe it here which can

be finished in less than a week. If it can be done in less than a

week, we should just do it right away instead of discussing how much

time it requires.




I agree that we can't be too granular with these tasks, if there are too many
then people will have trouble allocating intelligently between them. However, I
don't agree that if a task is less than a week's work that we should
automatically do it, we might have $25k worth of tasks like that!
Part of the solution is to have a “catch-all” for small “technical debt” tasks,
where they might not individually have a user-visible benefit, but where the
benefit is that they accelerate our development process over time, in part by
reducing the likelihood of bugs.
We could then have a fixed resource allocation for these, I've seen people use
25% in the past.


Finally: The text is far too long. A description for the method needs to
fit on a 14pt A5 page.


This wasn't just a description of the method, it was an argument in favor of
using the method, and some background on how I came up with the method.
A simple description of the method would be much shorter.
Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Proposal for a democratic process to efficiently allocate resources (including the $25k)

[Ian Clarke]

On Tue, May 3, 2016 2:14 PM, Michael Grube michael.gr...@gmail.com wrote:

I think it can be implemented
easily enough with intelligent use of Google Docs and a little bit of elbow



grease, which I'm ok with providing if others can help.



https://gist.github.com/sanity/4cf3b1c3484bdb9926d71bc9c4fc0341



Thoughts?



I think it's a good start. I wonder if it would be helpful to define our

categories only by measurable metrics. Subjective categories may be too

easy to spend unnecessary amounts of time and energy on with no final

result.




Maybe, although the top-level categories really don't play much of a role in the
planning process so probably not much point in overthinking them. Each task is
assessed individually, both in terms of value provided, and effort required.
Ian.
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[freenet-dev] Proposal for a democratic process to efficiently allocate resources (including the $25k)

[Ian Clarke]

I've written a proposal for how we can do this, based on my learnings over a
decade and a half of managing software projects (mostly commercial).
Feedback from the core team has been positive so-far, with the main objection
being that it may be too elaborate for our needs. I think it can be implemented
easily enough with intelligent use of Google Docs and a little bit of elbow
grease, which I'm ok with providing if others can help.
https://gist.github.com/sanity/4cf3b1c3484bdb9926d71bc9c4fc0341
Thoughts?
Ian.
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[freenet-dev] DuckDuckGo has donated $25k to Freenet

[Ian Clarke]

It should now be safe to announce that DuckDuckGo has donated $25k to Freenet.
Will follow-up with discussion with my thoughts on some processes we can use to
decide how to allocate it.
Ian.
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[freenet-dev] Law-enforcement lying to courts about how Freenet works

[Ian Clarke]

Some chatter on Reddit in the past few days about law enforcement apparently
providing incorrect information to courts about how Freenet works in order to
create probable cause to search people's computers:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Freenet/comments/4ebw9w/more_information_on_law_enforcements_freenet/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Freenet/comments/4es8lv/law_enforcement_freenet_project_links/
If law enforcement are indeed lying to courts in order to establish probable
cause to search computers, then we need to set the record straight.
Would anyone be interested in writing an article on this subject? If it is
well-written we might even be able to get a site like http://arstechnica.com/ to
publish it. Otherwise Medium.com might be another good vehicle.
Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Berlin or close resident needed, Fundraising opportunity on May 2-5

[Ian Clarke]

Great advocacy work Xor :)

On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 11:52 AM, x...@freenetproject.org wrote:
Hey folks, I recently attended a local Internet politics meetup to speak about
Freenet, at the hope of getting ideas for fundraising. We turned out to chat
about it for 4 hours, and one of the politicians there likes Freenet and is
indeed interested in helping us with acquiring donations! His plan is to speak
to higher level members of the green party about this. He will be at the
re:publica "Web 2.0" conference in Berlin, May 2-4. On Thursday May 5, he'll
also attend the screening of a movie from a politician who he suspects to be
able to help. I cannot be there myself unfortunately. So if one of you folks can
be in Berlin on May 2-4, and/or ideally on May 5, it would be nice if you could
accompany the guy so he has a Freenet expert at hand. If you are interested,
please quickly send me a mail about how you're easy to be contacted, for example
your phone number, as this is next week already. Thanks &
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Re: [freenet-dev] Decentralized Web Summit in San Francisco, by the Internet Archive, June 8th

[Ian]

Agreed.  Just some advice from my experience giving talks, if you guys are
speaking together you should practice going through the entire thing at
least 4 times before you'll both be comfortable and it will seem natural.

In fact the same applies even if it's just one of you, but two people is
more important because you don't want to step on each other, contradict
each-other, or really say anything that's going to surprise the other
person.

And definitely try not to get into an argument on stage :)

Ian.


On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 12:51 AM, <x...@freenetproject.org> wrote:

> On Tuesday, April 19, 2016 03:00:29 PM Michael Grube wrote:
> > If nobody would object, I can also check my availability. If both of us
> are
> > available, we could simply both go - right?
>
> A RAID of two people is indeed a good idea to be able to address all
> potential
> questions which one of them might not have an answer for, so yea, why not?
> :)
>
> Also I feel like projects which present themselves at a conference usually
> have multiple people on the stage.
>
> Thanks!
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[freenet-dev] Similarity between original SSK proposal and Bitcoin contracts

[Ian Clarke]

I've been reading about Bitcoin Contracts
<http://go.toutapp.com/90b05fd2ceb9921d1d>, and I'm surprised by the
similarity between these and, not just SSKs, but particularly the original
proposal for SSKs <http://go.toutapp.com/47378f027c07c02552> from way back
in June 2000, which involved a stack based language with cryptographic
primitives, just like the language used for Bitcoin contracts.

I don't know if the Bitcoin approach was inspired by SSKs at all, I suspect
more likely independent reinvention to solve a similar problem.

Ian.

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Re: [freenet-dev] What blocks Freenet adoption?

[Ian]

On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 4:28 AM, <hyazin...@emailn.de> wrote:

> I second Steve's statement. We've done enough 'looking what all is bad'
> stuff in recent past, people already know what's wrong, that's enough.
> Keep doing it - even when done in a very friendly and nice tone - just
> demotivates and that highens unproductivity.
>

I've never heard of a project that didn't try to maintain a clear idea of
what the project's priorities should be.  Are you saying that we already
have a comprehensive list of the issues in priority order?

If not, and it really doesn't sound like we do, then any discussion that
leads to one is entirely appropriate in any project, and there is no reason
anyone should be demotivated by it.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Applying for pro UX help for free

[Ian Clarke]

That would be great Charles, would you be able to submit an application?
If you need any help just let me know.

On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 2:25 PM, charles <char...@unixninja92.com> wrote:

> So I just found this program for free software projects that support
> free expression online to apply to to get help with UX.[1] I think it
> would be really useful for us to apply for this. There are so many
> places we could try and improve UX. I don't think they would necessarily
> help with the development side of things, but it would still be really
> valuable to get input and data from pro UX people. They could also help
> run usability studies and such.
>
> -Charles
>
> [1]  https://simplysecure.org/blog/apply-for-help/
>
>
>
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Re: [freenet-dev] What blocks Freenet adoption?

[Ian Clarke]

Arne and I had an extensive discussion about this off-list which I'll try
to summarize here.

I believe that one of our biggest problems is that the current website,
even though a significant improvement on what we had before, is still not
up to the standards of contemporary open source projects
<http://beautifulopen.com/>.

For example, I was chatting with the developers of Lantern
<https://getlantern.org/> last week, and the first thing they said when
they saw freenetproject.org is that the white-on-black design communicates
that there is something dark, surrupticious, perhaps even evil about
Freenet, which is precisely the opposite of the message we want our website
to send.  Contrast it with the Lantern website I've linked above, which I
think sends a message of openness and friendliness.

Since Arne and I have already debated it, let me preemptively respond to
some of what people might say :)

*We just redesigned the website, and you're telling us we need to redesign
it again?!*

I believe this to be an example of the sunk-cost fallacy
<http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallacies/174-sunk-cost-fallacy>.
Decisions about where to spend resources should depend on the current and
future needs of the project, but should not be influenced by where we've
spent resources in the past.  This might be difficult and painful because
it goes somewhat against human nature, but I think we need to be logical
about it.

*You're insulting the work of everyone that worked on the last redesign!*

I am not.  As I mentioned in my last email on this thread, we need to be
able to have an honest conversation about problems without people taking it
personally.  I said that the redesign was a bit improvement, and it was,
and my understanding is also that the underlying infrastructure of the site
was improved quite a bit too which should hopefully make any changes to the
overall template much easier.

*Redesigning the website will take months!*

I don't see why it should.  The website is fairly simple, mostly just text
- modifying the template shouldn't require more than a few days of work for
someone with the appropriate skills.

*What gives you the right to demand that volunteers spend time on fixing
the website?*

I don't claim that right, but I do have the right to state my opinion about
what is blocking Freenet adoption in the hope that I will persuade someone
with the appropriate skills to spend time on it.

*Why didn't you say all this 6 months ago when we were working on the
redesign?*

The honest answer is because I was distracted, at the time I was in the
process of departing the company I had co-founded.  Regardless, similar to
my point about sunk-cost, debating the past doesn't get us anywhere - we
need to focus on what is blocking adoption today and what we can do about
it.

*Why don't you redesign the site if you think it's such a good idea?*

Because I'm currently in the process of starting a new company which leaves
me with no spare time.  If I could set aside a few days then I probably
would do it, although I worry that people would then be angry that I've
replaced some of the recent work on the site.

Thoughts?

Ian.

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Re: [freenet-dev] What blocks Freenet adoption?

[Ian Clarke]

On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 10:32 AM, <x...@freenetproject.org> wrote:

> Overall comment about your mail: I think such threads are *asking* to
> cause a
> flamewar. Pick lots of random, unrelated stuff, and complain about its
> state -
> the "lots of" guarantees that you'll make as many developers feel affected
> negatively as possible. So you'll have lots of stressed people arguing,
> which
> is the recipe for a flamewar.


I'll respond to Arne's initial email in a minute, but just on this - I feel
that as a project we have to be able to point out problems honestly without
causing people to get defensive.

Now perhaps part of this responsibility is on the part of the person
pointing out the problem, they need to be diplomatic, and part of the
problem is on the other side, where people need to try to interpret
criticism as help, rather than taking it personally.

Most other projects manage this, I mean, almost every bug report could
potentially be interpreted as criticism of someone's work, and yet for
whatever reason that doesn't seem to happen in other projects.

Ian.

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Re: [freenet-dev] What blocks Freenet adoption?

[Ian Clarke]

On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 10:59 AM, Ian Clarke <ian.cla...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I said that the redesign was a bit improvement
>

Unfortunate typo - "bit" -> "big"

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Re: [freenet-dev] New UPnP2 plugin

[Ian]

On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 1:20 PM, Matthew Toseland <t...@amphibian.dyndns.org
> wrote:

> On 26/12/15 16:03, Ian wrote:
> > Best practice is to use the logging system, using System.out.println()
> for
> > logging is almost universally regarded as bad practice, many static
> > analysis tools will automatically flag it as a problem.
> >
> > The example you gave in NodeCrypto is not best practice, that should
> > probably just be something like:
> >
> > Logger.error(this, "Could not use port: "+bindto+ ':'+portNo+": "+e, e)
>
> In this case it is appropriate, because the above is only shown if the
> node is about to fail to start up (at least in the darknet case). See my
> message explaining the current policy. Changing the policy may be
> appropriate, I'm just documenting the current status quo.


Ok, but in that case this "policy" deviates from standard practice in Java
programming, which is to use a logging framework for all log messages, even
"fatal" messages.

The exception might be in Freenet was a command-line app, but that's not
how most people use Freenet.  A fatal error should ideally be reported via
FProxy, since most users aren't going to see stuff written to the console.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] New UPnP2 plugin

[Ian]

Best practice is to use the logging system, using System.out.println() for
logging is almost universally regarded as bad practice, many static
analysis tools will automatically flag it as a problem.

The example you gave in NodeCrypto is not best practice, that should
probably just be something like:

Logger.error(this, "Could not use port: "+bindto+ ':'+portNo+": "+e, e)

Freenet has it's own logging system (see here
<https://github.com/freenet/fred/blob/088f5f479a2b8b83d813e8a77d8f2937ce9c27d1/src/freenet/support/Logger.java>),
possibly because Freenet predates a lot of the logging frameworks, however
we should probably be using one of the numerous logging libraries like
Logback, as they are more flexible.

Ian.


On Sat, Dec 26, 2015 at 7:05 AM, Xiaoyu Huang <007...@gmail.com> wrote:

> System.out.println() is for easier debugging as I can see the results
> directly in wrapper.log.
>
> I see many examples in Fred code that uses both Logger and println(). An
> example in NodeCrypto.java line around 136:
>
> Logger.normal(this, "Could not use port: "+bindto+ ':'
> +portNo+": "+e, e);
> System.err.println("Could not use port: "+bindto+ ':'
> +portNo+": "+e);
>
> I'm not quite sure what's the best practice.
>
> -- Xiaoyu
>
> On Sat, Dec 26, 2015 at 1:39 AM, Ian <i...@locut.us> wrote:
>
> > This looks great!
> >
> > I notice a lot of System.out.println()s in the code, do we not have a
> > logging mechanism in Fred available for use by plugins?
> >
> > On Fri, Dec 25, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Xiaoyu Huang <007...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi All,
> > >
> > > As nextgens suggests, I write this plugin which is based on the newer
> and
> > > more stable UPnP lib named Cling (http://4thline.org/projects/cling/).
> > >
> > > Currently It only supports FredPluginIPDetector and
> > FredPluginPortForward.
> > > I will add FredPluginBandwidthIndicator and Web UI support when I have
> > > time.
> > >
> > > Code review, suggestions and tests are required. The source code can be
> > > accessed here:
> > >
> > > https://github.com/007pig/plugin-UPnP2
> > >
> > > I uses Gradle as the build system. So to build the plugin and package
> it
> > as
> > > plugin jar, you need:
> > >
> > >1. Copy freenet.jar, freenet-ext.jar and bcprov-jdk15on-152.jar to
> > >"[project root]/libs" dir.
> > >2. Run "./gradlew build shadowjar".
> > >3. After build, you can find the plugin in "[project
> root]/build/libs"
> > >with file name "plugin-UPnP2-1.0-SNAPSHOT-all.jar".
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Xiaoyu
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Re: [freenet-dev] New UPnP2 plugin

[Ian]

This looks great!

I notice a lot of System.out.println()s in the code, do we not have a
logging mechanism in Fred available for use by plugins?

On Fri, Dec 25, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Xiaoyu Huang <007...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> As nextgens suggests, I write this plugin which is based on the newer and
> more stable UPnP lib named Cling (http://4thline.org/projects/cling/).
>
> Currently It only supports FredPluginIPDetector and FredPluginPortForward.
> I will add FredPluginBandwidthIndicator and Web UI support when I have
> time.
>
> Code review, suggestions and tests are required. The source code can be
> accessed here:
>
> https://github.com/007pig/plugin-UPnP2
>
> I uses Gradle as the build system. So to build the plugin and package it as
> plugin jar, you need:
>
>1. Copy freenet.jar, freenet-ext.jar and bcprov-jdk15on-152.jar to
>"[project root]/libs" dir.
>2. Run "./gradlew build shadowjar".
>3. After build, you can find the plugin in "[project root]/build/libs"
>with file name "plugin-UPnP2-1.0-SNAPSHOT-all.jar".
>
> Thanks,
> Xiaoyu
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Re: [freenet-dev] New Freenet installer for Mac / FreenetTray v2.0.0

[Ian]

Hi Steve, just wanted to check in with you about this

On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 9:33 AM, Ian <i...@locut.us> wrote:

> Another minor thing: It appears to be starting Freenet automatically on
> startup even when "Start Freenet Automatically" is unchecked in Settings.
>
> Is there somewhere else you'd like bugs reported, or is this thread ok?
>
> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 8:32 AM, Ian <i...@locut.us> wrote:
>
>> Ah, you know - I'm an idiot, it had started after all, I just expected it
>> to pop up FProxy, and didn't notice that it had added a rabbit to my menu
>> bar.  Still, I think this might reveal a usability issue.
>>
>> I would suggest maybe if there is a way to distinguish when it is being
>> started automatically (ie. when the user logs in) and being started
>> manually, then it should open FProxy when it is started manually, but not
>> when it is started automatically.
>>
>> Additionally, if it is started when it is already running, then it should
>> open FProxy in the existing running instance.
>>
>> This is really great work, very slick indeed!
>>
>> Ian.
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 12:10 AM, Stephen Oliver <st...@infincia.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hey Ian,
>>>
>>> Which version of OS X are you running?
>>>
>>> That message is definitely unrelated (it’s from the Degrees weather
>>> app), but putting “FreenetTray” in the search box of Console.app should
>>> show more, and there is likely a crash report linked from one of the
>>> messages (alternatively, they should be in
>>> ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/).
>>>
>>> Thanks for testing!
>>>
>>>
>>> > On Dec 8, 2015, at 12:18 AM, Ian <i...@locut.us> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Screenshots look great, but trying to launch it, looks like it may be
>>> > crashing immediately.
>>> >
>>> > This error message may or may not be releated:
>>> >
>>> > 12/7/15 11:17:25.223 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]:
>>> > (at.appscape.degrees.helper[37139]) LaunchServices returned a bundle
>>> URL
>>> > that does not match with the LoginItem's known association.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 10:12 PM, Stephen Oliver <st...@infincia.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> Hello everyone,
>>> >>
>>> >> I’m pleased to announce that after several months of development and
>>> >> testing, the new Freenet installer for Mac is ready for use :)
>>> >>
>>> >> The installer is now built in to my existing FreenetTray app for Mac
>>> that
>>> >> has been distributed with Freenet for the past 5+ years, and is
>>> intended to
>>> >> replace the izPack based java_installer for Mac users.
>>> >>
>>> >> It fixes a variety of severe issues that Freenet users routinely
>>> encounter
>>> >> on Mac OS X, particularly new users installing for the first time,
>>> when
>>> >> they are most likely to be frustrated by problems and give up.
>>> >>
>>> >> Some of the immediate improvements include:
>>> >>
>>> >> - Everything needed to bootstrap a Freenet node on Mac is bundled,
>>> >> including a current Oracle Java 8 package
>>> >> - Suitable for offline distribution via USB or CD
>>> >> - Installing a Freenet node no longer requires Java to already be
>>> >> installed and working properly on the system, the installer will take
>>> care
>>> >> of it
>>> >> - Apple’s Java 6 package is no longer needed for any reason (yay!)
>>> >>
>>> >> Signed build including fred1470:
>>> >> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray/releases/tag/v2.0.0 <
>>> >> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray/releases/tag/v2.0.0>
>>> >>
>>> >> Source, more info and screenshots:
>>> >> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray#freenettray <
>>> >> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray#freenettray>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> ___
>>> >> Devl mailing list
>>> >> Devl@freenetproject.org
>>> >> https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
>>> >>
>>> > ___
>>> > Devl mailing list
>>> > Devl@freenetproject.org
>>> > https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
>>>
>>>
>>> ___
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>>> Devl@freenetproject.org
>>> https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
>>>
>>
>>
>
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Re: [freenet-dev] Open Encryption projects receive half a million euros of Dutch government

[Ian]

Can't hurt to try, thanks Michael!

On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 9:48 AM, Michael Grube <michael.gr...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Cliche quote about missing 100% of shots not taken goes here.
>
>
> If nobody else is even going to try, I suppose I will. I am not free until
> this weekend but I will give it a shot.
>
> On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 1:56 AM, Bert Massop <bert.mas...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The key parts of the amendment are the following:
> > > De indieners van dit amendement [willen] de ontwikkeling en versterking
> > van encryptie ondersteunen door €0,5 miljoen te doneren aan open source
> > encryptie projecten, zoals OpenSSL, LibreSSL, PolarSSL, etc.
> > > […]
> > > Het ministerie van Economische Zaken moet, in samenspraak met
> deskundigen
> > uit het veld, projecten selecteren die cruciaal zijn voor de
> internationale
> > internet infrastructuur.
> >
> > Or loosely translated:
> > > The authors of this amendment aim to support the development and
> > reinforcement of encryption by means of a donation of €0.5 million to
> open
> > source encryption projects, such as OpenSSL, LibreSSL, PolarSSL, etc.
> > > […]
> > > The Ministry of Economic Affairs must, together with field experts,
> > select projects that are crucial for the international internet
> > infrastructure.
> >
> > I deem it unlikely that Freenet would find any funding as a consequence
> of
> > this amendment.
> >
> > First, the amount is donated towards "open source encryption projects",
> > from the rest of the amendment it follows that encryption libraries are
> > meant—which we are not in my humble opinion. We use encryption, but we
> > don't provide it to other applications as such.
> >
> > Then, I would be lying if I claimed that Freenet is, at this point,
> crucial
> > for the internet infrastructure. Wouldn't I? ;)
> >
> > If anyone would like to give it a shot regardless of the above, it would
> > probably most useful to contact the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs.
> > Their contact information is provided in [0].
> >
> > All the best,
> > Bert
> >
> > [0]
> >
> >
> https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/ministeries/ministerie-van-economische-zaken/inhoud/contact-met-ez
> > Op 9 dec. 2015 01:05 schreef "Ian Clarke" <i...@freenetproject.org>:
> >
> > > Any Dutch Freeneters want to look into this?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://tweakers.net/nieuws/106723/open-encryptieprojecten-krijgen-half-miljoen-euro-van-nederlandse-overheid.html
> > >
> > > --
> > > Ian Clarke
> > > Founder, The Freenet Project
> > > Email: i...@freenetproject.org
> > > ___
> > > Devl mailing list
> > > Devl@freenetproject.org
> > > https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
> > ___
> > Devl mailing list
> > Devl@freenetproject.org
> > https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
> >
> ___
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> Devl@freenetproject.org
> https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
>
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Re: [freenet-dev] New Freenet installer for Mac / FreenetTray v2.0.0

[Ian]

Ah, you know - I'm an idiot, it had started after all, I just expected it
to pop up FProxy, and didn't notice that it had added a rabbit to my menu
bar.  Still, I think this might reveal a usability issue.

I would suggest maybe if there is a way to distinguish when it is being
started automatically (ie. when the user logs in) and being started
manually, then it should open FProxy when it is started manually, but not
when it is started automatically.

Additionally, if it is started when it is already running, then it should
open FProxy in the existing running instance.

This is really great work, very slick indeed!

Ian.

On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 12:10 AM, Stephen Oliver <st...@infincia.com> wrote:

> Hey Ian,
>
> Which version of OS X are you running?
>
> That message is definitely unrelated (it’s from the Degrees weather app),
> but putting “FreenetTray” in the search box of Console.app should show
> more, and there is likely a crash report linked from one of the messages
> (alternatively, they should be in ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/).
>
> Thanks for testing!
>
>
> > On Dec 8, 2015, at 12:18 AM, Ian <i...@locut.us> wrote:
> >
> > Screenshots look great, but trying to launch it, looks like it may be
> > crashing immediately.
> >
> > This error message may or may not be releated:
> >
> > 12/7/15 11:17:25.223 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]:
> > (at.appscape.degrees.helper[37139]) LaunchServices returned a bundle URL
> > that does not match with the LoginItem's known association.
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 10:12 PM, Stephen Oliver <st...@infincia.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Hello everyone,
> >>
> >> I’m pleased to announce that after several months of development and
> >> testing, the new Freenet installer for Mac is ready for use :)
> >>
> >> The installer is now built in to my existing FreenetTray app for Mac
> that
> >> has been distributed with Freenet for the past 5+ years, and is
> intended to
> >> replace the izPack based java_installer for Mac users.
> >>
> >> It fixes a variety of severe issues that Freenet users routinely
> encounter
> >> on Mac OS X, particularly new users installing for the first time, when
> >> they are most likely to be frustrated by problems and give up.
> >>
> >> Some of the immediate improvements include:
> >>
> >> - Everything needed to bootstrap a Freenet node on Mac is bundled,
> >> including a current Oracle Java 8 package
> >> - Suitable for offline distribution via USB or CD
> >> - Installing a Freenet node no longer requires Java to already be
> >> installed and working properly on the system, the installer will take
> care
> >> of it
> >> - Apple’s Java 6 package is no longer needed for any reason (yay!)
> >>
> >> Signed build including fred1470:
> >> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray/releases/tag/v2.0.0 <
> >> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray/releases/tag/v2.0.0>
> >>
> >> Source, more info and screenshots:
> >> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray#freenettray <
> >> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray#freenettray>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ___
> >> Devl mailing list
> >> Devl@freenetproject.org
> >> https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
> >>
> > ___
> > Devl mailing list
> > Devl@freenetproject.org
> > https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
>
>
> ___
> Devl mailing list
> Devl@freenetproject.org
> https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
>
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Re: [freenet-dev] New Freenet installer for Mac / FreenetTray v2.0.0

[Ian]

Another minor thing: It appears to be starting Freenet automatically on
startup even when "Start Freenet Automatically" is unchecked in Settings.

Is there somewhere else you'd like bugs reported, or is this thread ok?

On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 8:32 AM, Ian <i...@locut.us> wrote:

> Ah, you know - I'm an idiot, it had started after all, I just expected it
> to pop up FProxy, and didn't notice that it had added a rabbit to my menu
> bar.  Still, I think this might reveal a usability issue.
>
> I would suggest maybe if there is a way to distinguish when it is being
> started automatically (ie. when the user logs in) and being started
> manually, then it should open FProxy when it is started manually, but not
> when it is started automatically.
>
> Additionally, if it is started when it is already running, then it should
> open FProxy in the existing running instance.
>
> This is really great work, very slick indeed!
>
> Ian.
>
> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 12:10 AM, Stephen Oliver <st...@infincia.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hey Ian,
>>
>> Which version of OS X are you running?
>>
>> That message is definitely unrelated (it’s from the Degrees weather app),
>> but putting “FreenetTray” in the search box of Console.app should show
>> more, and there is likely a crash report linked from one of the messages
>> (alternatively, they should be in ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/).
>>
>> Thanks for testing!
>>
>>
>> > On Dec 8, 2015, at 12:18 AM, Ian <i...@locut.us> wrote:
>> >
>> > Screenshots look great, but trying to launch it, looks like it may be
>> > crashing immediately.
>> >
>> > This error message may or may not be releated:
>> >
>> > 12/7/15 11:17:25.223 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]:
>> > (at.appscape.degrees.helper[37139]) LaunchServices returned a bundle URL
>> > that does not match with the LoginItem's known association.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 10:12 PM, Stephen Oliver <st...@infincia.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hello everyone,
>> >>
>> >> I’m pleased to announce that after several months of development and
>> >> testing, the new Freenet installer for Mac is ready for use :)
>> >>
>> >> The installer is now built in to my existing FreenetTray app for Mac
>> that
>> >> has been distributed with Freenet for the past 5+ years, and is
>> intended to
>> >> replace the izPack based java_installer for Mac users.
>> >>
>> >> It fixes a variety of severe issues that Freenet users routinely
>> encounter
>> >> on Mac OS X, particularly new users installing for the first time, when
>> >> they are most likely to be frustrated by problems and give up.
>> >>
>> >> Some of the immediate improvements include:
>> >>
>> >> - Everything needed to bootstrap a Freenet node on Mac is bundled,
>> >> including a current Oracle Java 8 package
>> >> - Suitable for offline distribution via USB or CD
>> >> - Installing a Freenet node no longer requires Java to already be
>> >> installed and working properly on the system, the installer will take
>> care
>> >> of it
>> >> - Apple’s Java 6 package is no longer needed for any reason (yay!)
>> >>
>> >> Signed build including fred1470:
>> >> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray/releases/tag/v2.0.0 <
>> >> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray/releases/tag/v2.0.0>
>> >>
>> >> Source, more info and screenshots:
>> >> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray#freenettray <
>> >> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray#freenettray>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> ___
>> >> Devl mailing list
>> >> Devl@freenetproject.org
>> >> https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
>> >>
>> > ___
>> > Devl mailing list
>> > Devl@freenetproject.org
>> > https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
>>
>>
>> ___
>> Devl mailing list
>> Devl@freenetproject.org
>> https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
>>
>
>
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[freenet-dev] Open Encryption projects receive half a million euros of Dutch government

[Ian Clarke]

Any Dutch Freeneters want to look into this?

http://tweakers.net/nieuws/106723/open-encryptieprojecten-krijgen-half-miljoen-euro-van-nederlandse-overheid.html

-- 
Ian Clarke
Founder, The Freenet Project
Email: i...@freenetproject.org
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Re: [freenet-dev] New Freenet installer for Mac / FreenetTray v2.0.0

[Ian]

Screenshots look great, but trying to launch it, looks like it may be
crashing immediately.

This error message may or may not be releated:

12/7/15 11:17:25.223 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]:
(at.appscape.degrees.helper[37139]) LaunchServices returned a bundle URL
that does not match with the LoginItem's known association.


On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 10:12 PM, Stephen Oliver  wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I’m pleased to announce that after several months of development and
> testing, the new Freenet installer for Mac is ready for use :)
>
> The installer is now built in to my existing FreenetTray app for Mac that
> has been distributed with Freenet for the past 5+ years, and is intended to
> replace the izPack based java_installer for Mac users.
>
> It fixes a variety of severe issues that Freenet users routinely encounter
> on Mac OS X, particularly new users installing for the first time, when
> they are most likely to be frustrated by problems and give up.
>
> Some of the immediate improvements include:
>
> - Everything needed to bootstrap a Freenet node on Mac is bundled,
> including a current Oracle Java 8 package
> - Suitable for offline distribution via USB or CD
> - Installing a Freenet node no longer requires Java to already be
> installed and working properly on the system, the installer will take care
> of it
> - Apple’s Java 6 package is no longer needed for any reason (yay!)
>
> Signed build including fred1470:
> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray/releases/tag/v2.0.0 <
> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray/releases/tag/v2.0.0>
>
> Source, more info and screenshots:
> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray#freenettray <
> https://github.com/steveatinfincia/mactray#freenettray>
>
>
>
>
> ___
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> Devl@freenetproject.org
> https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
>
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Re: [freenet-dev] First hop over Tor

[Ian]

On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 11:13 AM, Matthew Toseland <mj...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
> Downsides:
> - Cheap denial of service attacks. Asymmetrical. Maybe we could make it
> bandwidth-symmetrical, e.g. by requiring bogus data transfers to balance
> both directions, but is that enough?
> - Tor is much more likely to be blocked than Freenet. :(
>

The most obvious downside to me is that we'd basically be combining all of
the disadvantages of Freenet with all of the disadvantages of Tor.  It
doesn't make sense to me.

Imagine if you could only run Linux if you were using it in an emulator on
top of Windows.  I doubt it would be very popular.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Freenet Canary

[Ian]

On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 2:24 PM, Victor Denisov <vdeni...@plukh.org> wrote:

>
> This is very interesting, it is - but I'm afraid the true reason Freenet
> is struggling as a software development project is much, much simpler.
> If I can put my two kopecks' worth out there, my *personal* feeling is
> that the project has been lacking some sort of a "steel hand",
> Stalin-style, ever since Ian had stepped down.
>
> Basically, what Freenet had shown in that regard is that management "by
> committee" doesn't work for open-source projects just like it doesn't
> work in the world of commercial applications. You (developers) and we
> (users) desperately need a real *leader*, a person who will listen to
> different points of view and then make quick, binding and final
> decisions - which everyone will respect and adhere to, and which will
> end any and all discussions of the topic in question. You/we should
> choose *one* person and willfully grant him/her authority to make final
> unilateral decisions on all aspects of the project.
>
> I'm afraid that before that is done, Freenet is destined to be stuck in
> the development mire it currently is.


I'm not sure, I've definitely been very hands-off in recent years, but even
at the peak of development around 2000-2003ish I don't think anyone would
describe me as "Stalin-like", I always tried to act more as a
"facilitator", trying to encourage people to play nice and be an
independent arbiter.  For a while that worked pretty well, perhaps
partially because the constant flow of favorable publicity provided a
constant flow of new, enthusiastic, and (often) competent developers
willing to devote their time.

I don't think a "Stalin-like" approach will work for most open source
projects because unlike Stalinist Russia, people voluntarily need to want
to be part of your project or they'll just walk away.

That being said, I do think the project would significantly benefit from a
new and much more engaged leader, ideally with project management
experience, but unfortunately such people do not grow on trees when you
need them to work voluntarily.  Should we find such a person I would
support them in a heartbeat.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Freenet Rebooted (without rewriting everything, pay for opennet)

[Ian Clarke]

On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 9:29 AM, Matthew Toseland <mj...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> 3. Opennet is not secure unless users pay for introduction.
>

Who would they pay, and how would this be implemented in a decentralized
way?

Given that we already have a shrinking userbase despite Freenet being free,
why do you think people will be willing to pay to use it?  Won't this
dramatically shrink our userbase to a tiny core of enthusiasts, which will
provide far less cover traffic and thus reduce security?

Opennet tunnels via ShadowWalker.


Isn't Freenet already extremely slow?  Wouldn't this just slow it down a
lot further?

Ian.

-- 
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Blog: http://blog.locut.us/
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Re: [freenet-dev] Bank account status

[Ian Clarke]

On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 1:01 AM, Dan Roberts <ademan...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EohzxhrgM1Ky4CaKpk72WiUNepFeT5krdReEKxDyL8o/edit?usp=sharing
>
> I've annotated lots of things I don't like with comments, I'm sure people
> will find many more things they hate. That's fine, be brutal. It's probably
> also too long...
>

A great start, but definitely way too long, and quite repetitive (we tell
them we need funds about 6 times!).  We should remove any sentence that is
repetitive or otherwise redundant.

Ian.


-- 
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Founder, The Freenet Project
Email: i...@freenetproject.org
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[freenet-dev] Bank account status

[Ian Clarke]

All, I've paid Xor's latest invoice, there is just $53.42 remaining in the
project bank account.  If someone could make the appropriate update to the
website, I'd appreciate it.

There is $1515.77 in Paypal, which I will now xfer to the bank account.

I am pretty convinced that it would be a bad idea to allow Xor to continue
working if the project doesn't have sufficient funds.

Aside from any potential legal problems, imagine what our pitch to donors
becomes at that point - "Hey, donate money so that we can pay off our
debts".  Not exactly a compelling pitch :/

And meanwhile Xor is potentially getting himself into a difficult financial
situation.

I believe that it would be irresponsible to go down that path.  If we want
Xor to keep working, we need a strategy for raising more money.  I think
this strategy will need to be to achieve specific goals that we lay out.
Perhaps we could explore a KickStarter - but that would only work if it is
to achieve something big and externally very visible (such as rebuilding
FProxy using a modern JavaScript framework like Bootstrap/React and
modernizing the installers).

Thoughts?

Ian.

-- 
Ian Clarke
Founder, The Freenet Project
Email: i...@freenetproject.org
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Re: [freenet-dev] Bank account status

[Ian Clarke]

That sounds good, recommend that you paste it into a Google Doc and allow
people to edit or make suggestions (you'll need to adjust the sharing
settings)

On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 1:11 PM, Dan Roberts <ademan...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I offered on IRC to write a preliminary donation request message to base
> our solicitations on. I've revised it twice as of last night, and I think
> after one more revision this evening and I'll open it up to everyone else
> for comment (~10PM PST). I'm not particularly happy with it at the moment,
> but actually it may generate more interest if everyone hates it ;-). From
> there we can revise it and begin adapting the message to different donors
> (I believe potential donors deserve a personal request, the purpose of my
> draft is only to get the ball rolling and serve as a starting point)
>
> This is not meant as a replacement for exploring indiegogo/kickstarter
> though. Something like that would still be good, it just strikes me as a
> mid-term project, not a short term effort to get back on track.
>
> Cheers,
> Dan
> On Nov 16, 2015 10:54 AM, "xor" <x...@freenetproject.org> wrote:
>
>> On Monday, November 16, 2015 10:52:16 AM Ian Clarke wrote:
>> > I am pretty convinced that it would be a bad idea to allow Xor to
>> continue
>> > working if the project doesn't have sufficient funds.
>> >
>> > Aside from any potential legal problems, imagine what our pitch to
>> donors
>> > becomes at that point - "Hey, donate money so that we can pay off our
>> > debts".  Not exactly a compelling pitch :/
>> >
>> > And meanwhile Xor is potentially getting himself into a difficult
>> financial
>> > situation.
>>
>> Argh, I had just messaged you that I'd like to postpone the final
>> discussion
>> of my offer "continue working with payment delayed as interest-free debt"
>> until Thursday :|
>> I need to figure out some real life stuff related to that.
>>
>> But well, my offer still is available though.
>> Freenet is more important to me than some temporary financial hassle.
>>
>> Thursday will just make me figure out how bad a "no" to my offer would be
>> for
>> me, which is why I'd prefer to not hear the decision until then.
>>
>> But, as said elsewhere, even if my offer is not accepted, I will:
>> 1) *not* seek a different job for now (= a year at least probably) and
>> use my
>> free time to resolve the major real life house cleanup/selling for my mom.
>> 2) stay available to resume my job once we have funding - my mom for sure
>> would accept me to reduce my efforts for her at any time.
>> 3) voluntarily continue replying on IRC / the mailing lists.
>> 4) voluntarily at least provide very basic maintenance for Web of Trust /
>> Freetalk to prevent user frustration. So please keep bug reports directed
>> at
>> me :)
>>
>> Nevertheless, please do notice that I cannot "officially" provide
>> volunteering
>> anymore due to my life situation. I am only offering this to keep the
>> project
>> alive by dealing with urgent stuff.
>> There is years work of worth at my mom's to be done, and if I do invest my
>> spare motivation for volunteering, it should be for her first (yes, she'll
>> pay me food, but that's about it :). So please just keep on mind that it
>> would
>> be a benefit if I could return to paid work ASAP, as earning money is
>> something I could justify to have a similarly significant priority.
>> I'll try to do my part in ensuring resuming of my job by helping at the
>> fundraising efforts.
>>
>> > If we want
>> > Xor to keep working, we need a strategy for raising more money.  I think
>> > this strategy will need to be to achieve specific goals that we lay out.
>>
>> I'd say we already have a strategy:
>>
>> 0a) Finish the fundraising bar on the website. Done already by the
>> volunteers!
>> Thanks again.
>>
>> 0b) Maybe deploy the next Freenet release so my work of the past 6 months
>> is
>> available to the users actually. Would be polite to provide the result of
>> the
>> previous money to the users before asking for more money. The code is
>> finished
>> from my side, it is just waiting for a fred release to be bundled with.
>> Steve
>> needs to decide whether this can happen soon, or will take too long. If it
>> takes to long, we can ignore this step.
>>
>> 1) Put a news article on website titled "We've run out of money". Notice:
>> I
>> suggested the 

Re: [freenet-dev] Project Status

[Ian Clarke]

I'm going to talk to Xor tomorrow, but under no circumstances can Freenet
go into debt to anyone.  As of right now, FPI has $1168.32 in our bank
account, and $1515.77 in Paypal.  Xor should not do any work that would
exceed this combined amount.

Ian.

On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 3:37 PM, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_...@web.de>
wrote:

> Am Donnerstag, 15. Oktober 2015, 16:39:29 schrieb xor:
> > I offer to write my bills as fully interest-free debt, with no time
> limit for
> > payment whatsoever. "Pay as soon as there are enough donations".
>
> I did not answer before, because I did not consider it my place to
> answer. Today I learned that this was interpreted as agreement.
> It was not agreement.
>
> I do not think that Freenet Project Inc. can afford to go into debt.
>
> And from what I saw in 15 minutes of googling, Ian might be liable for
> negligency for agreeing to this. That would mean that he would be
> personally liable for the debt of FPI. Given that we cannot predict
> donations this is something I would not do. Knowing that the first X
> months of donations would go towards paying debt could also be a
> pretty strong deterrent for potential donors.
>
> Weeks ago I sent you a link to a funding agency which I deem most
> likely to be able to fund your work. They offer 30k for a year, which
> is roughly what you’re billing right now (as far as I know).
> I don’t have that link anymore, and no time right now to dig through
> the IRC history. If you don’t have it anymore, ask me for it on
> tuesday evening.
>
> I’d like to be friendly here, but in matters of “we are broke” and
> “will we promise stuff we don’t have?”, making friendly promises would
> be dishonest. And getting Ian in legal trouble is a no-go.
>
> Best wishes,
> Arne




-- 
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Founder, The Freenet Project
Email: i...@freenetproject.org
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 12:27 PM, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_...@web.de>
wrote:

> Am Montag, 9. November 2015, 12:33:21 schrieb Ian:
> > I find it hard to believe that you're debating whether it is important
> that
> > a website is easy to read.  This is self-evident.
>
> You misunderstood what I said, and I won’t explain it.
>

Whatever.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 12:29 PM, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_...@web.de>
wrote:

> Am Sonntag, 8. November 2015, 13:47:49 schrieb Ian:
> > A website is there to be read
>
> This is already wrong. Our website is there to get people to install
> Freenet and help them use it. We couldn’t care less if no one read
> further than the first 5 lines if every visitor installed Freenet and
> enjoyed using it.
>

They won't install Freenet unless the website can explain to them why they
would want to install it.

I find it hard to believe that you're debating whether it is important that
a website is easy to read.  This is self-evident.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Sat, Nov 7, 2015 at 6:06 PM, Steve Dougherty <st...@asksteved.com> wrote:

> I don't understand why you chose not to bring this up earlier


I didn't choose not to bring this up earlier, my opinion is based in-part
on the feedback that we only received after the site went live.  That
prompted me to do some research on color schemes which solidified my view
that light on dark hurts readability.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Sun, Nov 8, 2015 at 11:12 AM, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_...@web.de>
wrote:

> Am Sonntag, 8. November 2015, 08:55:50 schrieb Ian:
>
Light on dark or dark on light is a minor point.


I disagree, it is the single most obvious aspect of the design, the very
first thing people notice when they visit the site.  We can't just ignore
the feedback we're getting because it is inconvenient.

On that subject though, from what Steve is saying the new site should be
much easier to modify than the old site, so I'm not sure that this is such
a catastrophic change after all.  The site already uses bootstrap, all I'm
suggesting is that we go back to the default Bootstrap color scheme, or
something closer to it.


> So please let us stop the bikeshedding discussion. We’re working on
> realizing the important points of the feedback — for example “your
> download page does not ask me to download the software” and “I don’t
> understand how your tool helps me in the first 10 seconds”.
>

I don't know what you mean by "bikeshedding discussion", but having a well
designed website is critical to the project's success.  I don't understand
why you want to ignore feedback from multiple sources, combined with
scientific data, telling us that there are serious issues with the color
scheme.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Sun, Nov 8, 2015 at 12:06 PM, Juiceman <juicema...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Bikeshed discussions is where most people don't feel qualified to weigh in
> on designing a nuclear reactor but everyone feels like they are entitled to
> design the bikeshed for the employee's of said nuclear power plant. The
> reactor will be done way before everyone and their brother agree on the
> color of the shed.
>

Except the color of a bikeshed isn't central to the function of the
bikeshed.  A website is there to be read, so if the color of the site
impedes readability then it is very much central to the function of the
site.


> I like the new site and I think you should stop pissing on volunteer's
> efforts.
>

Of course, nobody should ever provide constructive criticism of anything
because that would be "pissing on volunteer's
efforts".  Buggy code?  Poor documentation?  Doesn't matter, you're not
allowed to criticize.

That's ridiculous.  Multiple independent people have told us that the color
scheme is a problem.  You can stick your fingers in your ears and sing
"la-la-la" if you want, but don't expect me to.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Sun, Nov 8, 2015 at 2:37 PM, Juiceman <juicema...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Nov 8, 2015 2:48 PM, "Ian" <i...@locut.us> wrote:
> > That's ridiculous.  Multiple independent people have told us that the
> color
> > scheme is a problem.  You can stick your fingers in your ears and sing
> > "la-la-la" if you want, but don't expect me to.
>
> As you said yourself you should have weighed in earlier. Now it feels like
> nitpicking.


I've already explained that my opinion only solidified when I saw feedback
from multiple independent people saying the same thing, and this only
happen in the last day or two when I solicited feedback from designers on
Reddit.

If the suggestions would have been valid a month ago then they are still
valid today, even though they might have been more convenient a month ago.

I'm pretty sure none of us are professional website designers, which is why
I solicited advice from people that are.  Taking that advice seriously
isn't nitpicking, it is essential.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Sun, Nov 8, 2015 at 6:34 PM, Dan Roberts <ademan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Since
> someone on reddit compared us to Tor, and seeing as Tor is also a very
> technical project that needs to explain itself to laypeople, perhaps
> we could take some lessons from how they organize their messaging.
>

That's a great idea.  I2P's website is also pretty slick, I think we can
get some good ideas from it too: https://geti2p.net/en/

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Sat, Nov 7, 2015 at 5:50 AM, <hyazin...@emailn.de> wrote:

> >I'm pretty sure that isn't true. Not only does it not make any
> sense whatsoever, but I can't find anything to back that up. Can you
> support that claim?
>
> >That's not true.
>
> Both proven:
>
> http://youtube-global.blogspot.de/2011/03/were-turning-off-our-lights-in-honor-of.html


Your statement: Youtube does dark background for saving energy once a year.

Reality: Youtube did this once in 2011 for an hour, not to save energy
(because this isn't how LCD screens work), but as a gesture.

simply claiming an argument to be not convincing and pushing it close to
> factual incorrectness is a knockout argument,
> and rather reveals insistence on being right disquised as factual
> argumentation, than being valuable for getting a discourse forward.
>

That sentence doesn't make any more sense than anything else you've said.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Sat, Nov 7, 2015 at 2:28 AM, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_...@web.de>
wrote:

> Am Freitag, 6. November 2015, 17:37:56 schrieb Ian:
> > Originality might be important for art, but a website is a user-interface
> > first, art (a distant) second.  With a user interface, it is very rare
> that
> > doing something nobody else does is a good thing, normally there is a
> good
> > reason why nobody else is doing it.
>
> It used to be such that most programmer websites were light on
> black. I trace the change of style more to the trend of more
> programmers switching to Apple than to user interface research.
>

Actually user interface research tells us that black on white is the most
readable combination (source
<http://www.laurenscharff.com/research/survreslts.html>):

As you can see, the most readable color combination is black text on white
> background


and...

Also, in every color combination surveyed, the darker text on a lighter
> background was rated more readable than its inverse (e.g. blue text on
> white background ranked higher then white text on blue background).


Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2015 at 5:54 PM, <hyazin...@emailn.de> wrote:

> Youtube does dark background for saving energy once a year.
>

I'm pretty sure that isn't true.  Not only does it not make any sense
whatsoever, but I can't find anything to back that up.  Can you support
that claim?

So, not only at least one big website uses dark background, it's also good
> for the environment.
>

That's not true
<http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-black-is/>.


> Additionally, functionality really isn't a problem with current dark
> background. Reasons:
> - mostly there is less text / no huge text deserts
> - the text builds a high contrast to the background, especially thanks to
> bold typo and because the text is big enough
> - it's not that colors on the website are so onesided and intense, that
> uncomfortable compensation effects are happening (looking on red
> background, switching to white background, seeing green although no green
> is there)
> If despite of all that it just has to be made more functional, I'd rather
> make the space between the letters a tiny bit bigger, and if that's not
> enough than would redo and instead of that choose a slightly bigger text
> size.
> Finally, asthetic design does matter. You eat with your eyes first, and
> the current dark background as it is is the perfect reflection in design of
> a key component of the freenet: The darknet.


Yeah, that's about as convincing as your previous arguments, one of which
is almost certainly factually incorrect, and the other is definitely
factually incorrect.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2015 at 5:23 PM, <hyazin...@emailn.de> wrote:

> The dark background is fine. Functionally the current setting ain't that
> bad, and aside of that the dark background
> is a nice change. Consider that one aspect of beauty is rarity and
> relations:
> If everything looks alike (white background) across the internet, then
> that look is not interesting or beautiful, but boring average.
>

Originality might be important for art, but a website is a user-interface
first, art (a distant) second.  With a user interface, it is very rare that
doing something nobody else does is a good thing, normally there is a good
reason why nobody else is doing it.

In this case, almost nobody does dark backgrounds because it makes the site
hard to read.  The tool fails to do it's job.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 5:15 PM, xor <x...@freenetproject.org> wrote:

> On Thursday, November 05, 2015 03:40:31 PM Ian wrote:
> > Also, I think the current site is worse than the version during testing
> due
> > to the placement of the donation bar, which it is clear is causing
> > significant confusion.
>
> The main goal with the new large bar is having people see it since it is an
> emergency fundraiser since we're unable to pay me... So due to the
> emergency
> it ought to be an eye-catcher and thus IMHO is fine to be the first thing
> on
> the page as it is now.
>

We're not Wikipedia, almost every visitor to Wikipedia already knows what
Wikipedia is and why it might be deserving of their donations, most
visitors to our website do not.  Shouting "GIVE US MONEY!" before we've
even explained what we are is not going to work, and will be
counter-productive because it is obviously confusing people and turning
them away from the site.

With regards to the "it is impolite to first ask for money and only
> afterwards
> have the download button" criticism which was mentioned somewhere:
> We should grow a spine and realize that it is not impolite.
>

It's not a question of politeness, it's simply a fact that shouting "GIVE
US MONEY!" at people before we've explained anything about what we do won't
work, and will drive them away from the site.  This isn't speculation,
people are already telling us this clearly (both on reddit and on IRC)

We've really got to think about how we lay out the website from the
perspective of visitors to the website, not from the perspective of what we
want.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 5:33 PM, xor <x...@freenetproject.org> wrote:

> On Thursday, November 05, 2015 03:35:30 PM Ian wrote:
> > Really?  It looks nothing like a typical Bootstrap site.  I think it
> might
> > have been better to stick much more closely to the standard Bootstrap CSS
> > (eg. light background).
>
> With regards to "light background": We won't ever win this situation.
> We had a light background, so people complained we should get a dark one.
>

I don't know who these "people" are that advocated for a dark background,
but almost no other popular website on the Internet has a dark background
and light text, likely because it makes the site difficult to read (which
is the feedback we've been getting).

Now we have a dark one, and people complain we should get a light one.
> This IMHO is just a matter of taste, both are equally valid.
>

If both were equally valid, then how come almost no popular website on the
Internet has a dark background?

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 3:38 PM, Steve Dougherty <st...@asksteved.com> wrote:

> Noted. That sort of feedback would have been much more helpful back when
> the redesign was in testing.
>

Better late than never.  That feedback is partially based on external
feedback - eg. the Reddit comments - which we didn't have back then.

Also, I think the current site is worse than the version during testing due
to the placement of the donation bar, which it is clear is causing
significant confusion.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian Clarke]

Thanks Arne.  What do other people think of this feedback?

Is there someone who is really willing to take ownership of getting the
website into shape, perhaps using these pieces of feedback as a starting
point?  It will be a significant amount of work to address all of the
points, but a well-designed website is critical to the project's success.

It might be too late given the new design, but my recommendation might have
been to start from something like Bootstrap <http://getbootstrap.com/>,
which makes it brain-dead simple to create very attractive websites.  I
know a lot of developers without much design skill that have used it to
very good effect.

Ian.

On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 2:50 PM, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_...@web.de>
wrote:

> Am Mittwoch, 4. November 2015, 22:56:40 schrieb Ian Clarke:
> > This person put quite a bit of time into providing feedback on the new
> > site.  Probably not stuff we want to hear, but very valuable:
> >
> https://www.reddit.com/r/design_critiques/comments/3ri38h/we_recently_redesigned_our_website_would_love/cwoq0n4
>
> I consider them good points and constructive.
>
> (regarding “time better spent”: the designer did not see the old site :))
>
> A small step into the direction of telling why people want to use
> Freenet: https://github.com/freenet/website/pull/21
> Not perfect, but a start.
>
> Second part: Moving the donation bar away from the top. We’re not
> Wikipedia, people don’t come to our website to see our website, so
> when we make it harder for them to see it, they will just not install
> Freenet.
>
> Best wishes,
> Arne
>



-- 
Ian Clarke
Founder, The Freenet Project
Email: i...@freenetproject.org
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 3:19 PM, Steve Dougherty <st...@asksteved.com> wrote:

> This site is already using Bootstrap.
>

Really?  It looks nothing like a typical Bootstrap site.  I think it might
have been better to stick much more closely to the standard Bootstrap CSS
(eg. light background).

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

By the way, I really don't mean to be harsh, you guys have done great work
on the site, but in my experience listening to and acting on feedback is
absolutely critical.  It can be very difficult for the person that builds
something to view it in the same way that other people do.

In a different context I'm working on a slideshow for something right now,
and I've asked for feedback from a bunch of people, and they were able to
point out many issues I was oblivious to.

Ian.

On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 3:40 PM, Ian <i...@locut.us> wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 3:38 PM, Steve Dougherty <st...@asksteved.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Noted. That sort of feedback would have been much more helpful back when
>> the redesign was in testing.
>>
>
> Better late than never.  That feedback is partially based on external
> feedback - eg. the Reddit comments - which we didn't have back then.
>
> Also, I think the current site is worse than the version during testing
> due to the placement of the donation bar, which it is clear is causing
> significant confusion.
>
> Ian.
>
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian]

Cool.

Some feedback here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/design_critiques/comments/3ri38h/we_recently_redesigned_our_website_would_love/

On Wed, Nov 4, 2015 at 9:41 AM, Steve Dougherty <st...@asksteved.com> wrote:

> We're aware of the excessive vertical space and are working on fixing it.
>
> On Wed, Nov 4, 2015, 10:39 AM Michael Grube <michael.gr...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Should the website maybe also mention Freenet's 501c3 status near the
> > donation bar?
> > On Nov 4, 2015 10:34 AM, "Ian Clarke" <i...@freenetproject.org> wrote:
> >
> > > I like the donation bar, and the website is a huge improvement.
> > >
> > > However, I'm still very concerned about how much blank space there is
> on
> > > our front page, while you have to scroll down to see any kind of real
> > > explanation of what Freenet is.  The bulk of the information is below
> the
> > > fold.  I really think the layout is all wrong here, and given that it's
> > the
> > > landing page, it is absolutely critical that we get it right.
> > >
> > > I'm also not a fan of the scrollbox as the primary means to explain
> what
> > > Freenet is (it get's price of place in the middle of the page).  I find
> > it
> > > pretty cumbersome.  It might be good off to the side, but not right in
> > the
> > > middle of the first page people see (surrounded by mostly blank space).
> > >
> > > Can anyone think of any other well-designed website that has so much
> > empty
> > > space above the fold when the page is first loaded?  I guess you could
> > say
> > > that Google does, but they have far less explaining to do.
> > >
> > > I've submitted it for feedback here:
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://www.reddit.com/r/design_critiques/comments/3ri38h/we_recently_redesigned_our_website_would_love/
> > >
> > > Ian.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Ian Clarke
> > > Founder, The Freenet Project
> > > Email: i...@freenetproject.org
> > > ___
> > > Devl mailing list
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> > ___
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Re: [freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian Clarke]

This person put quite a bit of time into providing feedback on the new
site.  Probably not stuff we want to hear, but very valuable:
https://www.reddit.com/r/design_critiques/comments/3ri38h/we_recently_redesigned_our_website_would_love/cwoq0n4

On Wed, Nov 4, 2015 at 9:34 AM, Ian Clarke <i...@freenetproject.org> wrote:

> I like the donation bar, and the website is a huge improvement.
>
> However, I'm still very concerned about how much blank space there is on
> our front page, while you have to scroll down to see any kind of real
> explanation of what Freenet is.  The bulk of the information is below the
> fold.  I really think the layout is all wrong here, and given that it's the
> landing page, it is absolutely critical that we get it right.
>
> I'm also not a fan of the scrollbox as the primary means to explain what
> Freenet is (it get's price of place in the middle of the page).  I find it
> pretty cumbersome.  It might be good off to the side, but not right in the
> middle of the first page people see (surrounded by mostly blank space).
>
> Can anyone think of any other well-designed website that has so much empty
> space above the fold when the page is first loaded?  I guess you could say
> that Google does, but they have far less explaining to do.
>
> I've submitted it for feedback here:
> https://www.reddit.com/r/design_critiques/comments/3ri38h/we_recently_redesigned_our_website_would_love/
>
> Ian.
>
> --
> Ian Clarke
> Founder, The Freenet Project
> Email: i...@freenetproject.org
>



-- 
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Founder, The Freenet Project
Email: i...@freenetproject.org
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[freenet-dev] Thoughts on website

[Ian Clarke]

I like the donation bar, and the website is a huge improvement.

However, I'm still very concerned about how much blank space there is on
our front page, while you have to scroll down to see any kind of real
explanation of what Freenet is.  The bulk of the information is below the
fold.  I really think the layout is all wrong here, and given that it's the
landing page, it is absolutely critical that we get it right.

I'm also not a fan of the scrollbox as the primary means to explain what
Freenet is (it get's price of place in the middle of the page).  I find it
pretty cumbersome.  It might be good off to the side, but not right in the
middle of the first page people see (surrounded by mostly blank space).

Can anyone think of any other well-designed website that has so much empty
space above the fold when the page is first loaded?  I guess you could say
that Google does, but they have far less explaining to do.

I've submitted it for feedback here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/design_critiques/comments/3ri38h/we_recently_redesigned_our_website_would_love/

Ian.

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Founder, The Freenet Project
Email: i...@freenetproject.org
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Re: [freenet-dev] Multiple implementations considered harmful was Re: Project Status

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 11:24 AM, Florent Daigniere <
nextg...@freenetproject.org> wrote:

> On Tue, 2015-11-03 at 10:43 -0600, Ian wrote:
> Most of their funding comes from the government and they have ensured
> that their technology can be used by them (those sponsors).
>

A long time ago I also sought funding from the US government.  They were
interested but in the end they didn't bite.  Remember that Tor was designed
by the US Navy, that gave them a pretty big advantage when it came to
seeking government funding.


> We have created a technology that is meant to "fight" governments...
> while carefully avoiding any specific usecase that would have attracted
> their wrath (the copyright infringement brigade, ...) but would have
> significantly increased the user-base.
>

Building "Napster 2" was never my goal, nor the goal of anyone involved in
the project during its first few years.  Going down that route would simply
have ensnared us in legal turmoil (meaning that most or all of our
donations would have gone to pay for lawyers).


> In your initial "project status" email, your focus seems to be "paying
> the bills". Is that the problem at hand? If so we do need a strategy.
>

I believe I was referring to myself, not the project.  I have bills to pay.


> > We don't because we chose not to. We could have settled on a simpler
> > > problem;
> >
> >
> > Sure, there are an infinity of other problems we could have settled
> > on, but
> > then that wouldn't be Freenet.
> >
>
> I've always thought that Freenet can't be anything more than a research
> project. You've conveniently dropped that alternative from my reply.
>
> If we agree that Freenet is a reseach project then we can look at how
> we can fund such a thing.


Freenet is a research project, or it has been, it's also software that
people can download and use.  These aren't mutually exclusive, in fact it's
pretty-much impossible to experiment with P2P software in a lab, you have
to deploy it.


> The classical answer is publishing and grants
> (what GNUnet does) and/or no paid staff.
>

Those guys are academics, publishing and finding grants is their skillset.
We have published papers in the past (by people like Theodore Hong, who is
an academic and therefore it's his skillset).  Nothing to prevent people
from publishing papers and/or applying for grants.  The problem is that
that isn't the skillset of the current volunteers.

People seem to be under the impression that I can simply decree that "we
will now publish papers and apply for grants" and it will happen.  It
doesn't work like that.  If a volunteer decides to do it and then does it,
then it will happen, if they don't, it won't.  I can't tell people to do
anything that they don't want to do.


> We've never used the funding we had for publishing nor applying for
> more grants; maybe we should have.
>

Because it wasn't anyone's skillset, but if someone wanted to do it and had
the skillset to do it, they were free to do it.


> If we don't agree on the fact that Freenet is a research project then
> I'd like to be told what it is (or meant to be). The current security
> model doesn't fit anyone's use-case.
>

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "research project", or what impact
you think it would have for us to declare that Freenet is a "research
project".  It wouldn't suddenly cause people to start throwing grants at
us, someone still has to do the work of applying, and there is nothing to
prevent them from doing that today.


> Years ago (back when I had free time) I meant to fork the project, I've
> regretted not doing so ever since. I've never liked the trade-offs
> financial concerns made us do. To give you an example:
> opennet/darknet/hybrid. If it had been up to me, Opennet wouldn't have
> existed and Darknet might be usable by now... but the concern at the
> time was how to find funds for Matthew.
>

It wasn't about funding.  The concern at the time was that a darknet-only
Freenet has a very serious cold-start problem, because it dramatically
raises the barrier to entry for joining the network, since it requires that
you already know someone that runs Freenet.  Opennet was a way to get
around that problem.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Multiple implementations considered harmful was Re: Project Status

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:53 AM, Bob Ham <r...@settrans.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 2015-11-03 at 10:43 -0600, Ian wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:38 AM, Bob Ham <r...@settrans.net> wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, 2015-11-03 at 10:35 -0600, Ian wrote:
> > >
> > > > Anyone educated on modern software development practices knows that
> > > > well-written code is self-documenting
> > >
> > > I disagree.
> >
> >
> > Read the book I referenced
>
> You haven't given me a reference, you've given me a URL to a web page at
> Amazon, which I haven't followed.  Because it's Amazon.


I'm sorry that I failed to correctly anticipate your particular brand of
tinfoil hat prior to sending that email.

Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship -  Robert C. Martin
- ISBN 978-0132350884

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Multiple implementations considered harmful was Re: Project Status

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 11:20 AM, Bob Ham <r...@settrans.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 2015-11-03 at 11:02 -0600, Ian wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:59 AM, Bob Ham <r...@settrans.net> wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, 2015-11-03 at 10:55 -0600, Ian wrote:
> > > > Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship -  Robert C.
> > > Martin
> > > > - ISBN 978-0132350884
> > >
> > > Why, what do they say in the book that isn't said elsewhere?
>
> > I don't really have time to type the entire book into an email for you.
>
> I'm asking why you think it's worth reading.  Someone on a mailing list
> saying "read this" and expecting me to trust them is generally not a
> good enough reason for me to spend the time reading a book.  Especially
> when the guy has said the kind of things you've said.
>

Look, I really don't have a vested interest in your education.  If my
recommendation isn't enough for you then by all means, don't read the
book.  I don't care.  I've told you how you can learn more about the author
without spending a dime.  I'll also say that some of the best software
engineers I've worked with are big fans of Bob Martin's coding philosophy.

Ian.
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[freenet-dev] A bold idea for discussion: "Freenet 2"

[Ian]

For those that appear to be craving a "bold new strategy", one thing I've
proposed in the past would be to put the main Freenet codebase in
"maintenance mode", and throw our resources behind http://tahrirproject.org/
(possibly renaming it "Freenet 2" since Tahrir is a terrible name).

Tahrir addresses several key concerns:

   - The people we actually want to help, those in China, Iran, etc, often
   have very constrained bandwidth.  Tahrir is designed for this, Freenet is a
   bandwidth hog
   - Tahrir is designed for a Twitter/Facebook type use-case
   ("microblogging"), which has proven very powerful in terms of promoting
   political change
   - It's a fresh-ish codebase, much smaller, although needs some cobwebs
   blown off
   - Can incorporate a mixnet, but actually better suited to a mixnet than
   Tor because latency is less of an issue

Clearly, this would not be a direct successor to Freenet, it would not be
backwards compatible, and would be designed for a different (but perhaps
more current) use-case.

Thoughts?

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Multiple implementations considered harmful was Re: Project Status

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:59 AM, Bob Ham <r...@settrans.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 2015-11-03 at 10:55 -0600, Ian wrote:
> > Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship -  Robert C.
> Martin
> > - ISBN 978-0132350884
>
> Why, what do they say in the book that isn't said elsewhere?


I don't really have time to type the entire book into an email for you.

If you're not morally opposed to YouTube, search for Robert C Martin, he
has a lot of lectures on there.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] working together as a community with a covert adversary

[Ian]

Nice article Arne.

While I hope there haven't been deliberate efforts to disrupt the project
through the psyops mechanisms you describe, I do think we do a pretty good
job of disrupting it ourselves sometimes.

The tone on this list frequently leaves a lot to be desired.  I'm not
blameless in this, although generally I try to only respond with negativity
in response to negativity.  We're not the only project
<http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/linus-torvalds-defends-his-right-to-shame-linux-kernel-developers/>
with this problem.

Ian.


On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 3:36 PM, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_...@web.de>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Given the recent threads, I’d like to share some thoughts on working
> together as community with a strong but covert adversary.
>
> There are lots of ways to disrupt work without leaving obvious traces,
> but most of them can be disarmed with a simple tactic:
>
> Stay friendly, stick together, keep honest and greet every
> newcomer as a potential ally.
>
> And call out disrupting behaviour early on: If someone insults new
> folks or takes up huge amounts of discussion time by rehashing old
> discussions instead of talking about the way forward - in a way which
> actually leads to going forward - then say that this is your
> impression. Still stay friendly: Most of the time that’s not
> intentional. And people can be affected by outside influences like
> someone attacking them in other channels, so it would be important to
> help them recover and not to push them away because their behaviour
> became toxic for some time (as long as the time investment for that is
> not overarching).
>
> Overall it’s about keeping the community together despite the
> knowledge that some of us might actually be aggressors or influenced
> from the outside to disrupt our work.
>
> I wrote a bit more on that, including what got me to write it, in
>
> De-Orchestrating Freenet with the QUEEN program
> What if Poul-Henning Kamp was right?
> http://draketo.de/english/freenet/de-orchestrating-phk
>
> I hope you enjoyed reading the text, and I’m looking forward to keep
> working with you.
>
> Best wishes,
> Arne
>
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Re: [freenet-dev] A bold idea for discussion: "Freenet 2"

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 6:43 PM, xor <x...@freenetproject.org> wrote:
>
> Please please don't try to split the developer community like you just did,
> we're lucky that the situation has improved to the point where I can barely
> keep up with the IRC backlog.
>

Keep your shirt on - I described this as a bold strategy - and made it
clear that it was only for the purposes of discussion.  I agree with many
of the disadvantages of doing this.  It doesn't hurt to consider "out of
the box" ideas once in a while.

However, it's clear that some people are very dissatisfied with the current
state of Freenet.  Whatever we call it, it's possible that Tahrir might be
of interest to them (it wouldn't be depriving Freenet of anything because
such people are unlikely to contribute to Freenet).

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Request for comments: Change list+IRC policy to avoid full rewrite flamewars

[Ian Clarke]

I don't think censorship is the answer :)

Look, anyone can join the mailing list and can suggest whatever they want.
You can ignore them (probably the best option).  If someone feels like
responding they can, but just because something is generating a discussion
thread does *not* mean that it's going to result in some dramatic change in
direction.

Freenet has been around a *long* time, and we have a 16-year track record
of *not* making hasty and dramatic changes to project direction.  That's
not going to change any time soon.

That's not to say that we shouldn't be willing to consider out-of-the-box
ideas, but there is a big difference between considering something and
actually doing it.

Ian.


On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 7:14 PM, xor <x...@freenetproject.org> wrote:

> Imagine the following situation:
> You're a volunteer who donated months of his spare time, and thus months of
> his life, to write a plugin for a piece of software.
>
> Then someone comes along, and demands the parent piece of software to be
> rewritten from scratch. Maybe because he doesn't like it, maybe because
> $programming_language != $cool_language_of_the_year.
> This would render your plugin useless, as your Java module can't be fixed
> to
> load into the C rewrite.
>
> We can assume that any human will be interested in his work of months or
> even
> years not being thrown away. So as a volunteer, you will be interested in
> finding a way to keep your module loading.
> The rewrite could go down one of the following paths, with different things
> you'll have to do to keep your module usable:
>
> A) The fork replaces the original software. It takes over its name, its
> website, its mailing lists, its IRC channel, etc. You, as someone
> interested
> in the original software, have to fork the original pre-write software so
> you
> can continue to provide  your module loadable into it. You have to set up a
> new website, new mailing lists, IRC channels, etc., just to keep the
> original
> software alive.
>
> B) The one who wants to do a rewrite "forks" the project, i.e. develops the
> rewrite on his own. New name, new software. The original project continues
> its
> development as is. The rewrite happens elsewhere. You don't need to do
> *anything* to keep your plugin working, as the original project still
> exists.
> The rewriter has the burden of setting up infrastructure for his fork. He
> sets
> up a website, mailing lists, etc. You're not concerned.
>
> Which approach is more polite towards our example volunteer who spend
> months
> writing code for the original software?
> B obviously, as it doesn't cause any work for him.
>
> I would go as far as saying that "fork does not replace original project"
> is
> actually always the real situation anyway: You cannot force people to stop
> working on a GPL software. Any full rewrite is de-facto a different
> software.
>
> Thus, how about this new etiquette rule for the mailing lists, IRC, etc.:
> If discussions about rewriting Freenet happen again, we ask people
> politely to
> conduct them on the communication channels of their fork; not on ours.
> We're not responsible for providing infrastructure for their projects, and
> this includes discussion space.
>
> I know this is sort of passive aggressive, but I don't think we're doing
> ourselves a favor with letting the rewrite discussions happen:
> They might be an intentional attack by the NSA [1]:
> Disturb developers so much with outrageous demands that they spent 100% of
> their time in discussing with the attacker; and 0% on writing code.
> All it takes to conduct this attack is an email address (= $ 0) and a few
> hours of a bored student (= $a_few_beers).
> In fact the discussions are already growing so large that they could
> consume
> 100% of my worktime if I tried to reply to all mails.
>
> To avoid another huge discussion, I would recommend you reply with a simple
> vote: "Yes, let's change the rules to disallow rewrite discussions." or "No
> please don't."
>
> Greetings & thanks for reading
>
> [1] http://draketo.de/english/freenet/de-orchestrating-phk
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>



-- 
Ian Clarke
Blog: http://blog.locut.us/
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Re: [freenet-dev] Multiple implementations considered harmful was Re: Project Status

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 4:04 AM, Bob Ham <r...@settrans.net> wrote:
>
> I will now make a concrete suggestion: start writing things down.


It's interesting that you would point to the Hurd as an example of how a
software project should be run, perhaps if they had spent more time on code
and less on documentation, as Linux did, Linux wouldn't have utterly won
that battle.  The GNU Hurd is a cautionary tale, not a model for software
development.

As for your belief that documentation will solve everything (as it clearly
didn't for GNU Hurd),  you may not be aware of the "Agile manifesto", which
has become the dominant project management methodology over the past 15
years or so.  On of the tenants of this is "Working software over
comprehensive documentation".

You may also be unaware that in the ideal case, well-written code is
self-documenting, making external documentation unnecessary.  This is one
of the tenants of the "clean code" methodology.  Unfortunately our codebase
certainly does not live up to this ideal, however time would be better
spent improving our code such that it is self-documenting, rather than
producing vast amounts of documentation nobody will read.

I don't claim that we are perfect, far from it, but if you think that
dropping everything and producing vast amounts of documentation will solve
anything, I'm afraid you're mistaken.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Multiple implementations considered harmful was Re: Project Status

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 9:14 AM, Ximin Luo <infini...@freenetproject.org>
wrote:
>
> You're applying a generalisation inappropriately here. Linux did not win
> because they spent time writing code instead of documentation. They did
> both. And even now they're taking ideas from Hurd and microkernel theory.
>

I'm not claiming that Linux won just because they spent more time writing
code than documentation, however Linux definitely had a "code first, ask
questions later" philosophy, whereas Hurd was a much more "theoretical"
exercise.  You might want to read or re-read this
<http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/opensources/book/appa.html> debate between
Torvalds and Tanenbaum


> The Agile manifesto is a load of crap. I've seen more teams and more
> projects destroy themselves by deferring to the Agile manifesto to excuse
> bad engineering, than destroy themselves by overengineering and
> overdocumentation.
>

Apparently you've seen a lot of poorly run projects.  I agree that agile
has become a dogma of sorts, and like any dogma it can be abused, however
the underlying principles are solid, which is why nobody seriously defends
a waterfall software development methodology any more.

You may not like agile, and you might have seen mediocre engineers use it
to defend their mediocrity, but the general idea of "shut-up and code" won
the battle of ideas a long time ago.

Also Bob was talking about the current Hurd project. It's a stretch to say
> that Hurd lost "because" of overdocumentation. There were technical
> problems with microkernel architecture that were not solved for a long
> time, less people in FOSS understood it, blah blah blah. Some microkernels
> like L4 are becoming more succesful today, and in the long run they have
> inherent advantages over monolithic kernels, such as being easier to
> formally verify.
>

Yes, even 23 years ago they were making the same arguments, "microkernels
are better in the long run", the problem is that in the long run we're all
dead.  That's not an exaggeration, there are many software engineers that
died in the decades they waited for microkernels to become useful.


> > You may also be unaware that in the ideal case, well-written code is
> > self-documenting, making external documentation unnecessary.  This is one
> > of the tenants of the "clean code" methodology.
>
> This is for *other developers*, not for external reviewers


Of course well written self-documenting code is for external reviewers.  If
someone is going to review something, much better that they review working
code than some document that purports (but might not) describe the working
code.


> or other projects that might to interoperate with different components of
> your product. It's irrelevant to what's being discussed.


Do you see a long line of software developers just waiting to reimplement
Freenet, if only they had comprehensive documentation?  You're dreaming.
We barely have the resources to maintain and advance one implementation of
Freenet.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Multiple implementations considered harmful was Re: Project Status

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:11 AM, Bob Ham <r...@settrans.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 2015-11-03 at 08:57 -0600, Ian wrote:
> > The GNU Hurd is a cautionary tale, not a model for software
> > development.
>
> If GNU Hurd is a cautionary tale, what is Freenet?
>

Did I say Freenet was perfect?  I said the opposite.


> > You may also be unaware that in the ideal case, well-written code is
> > self-documenting
>
> I find that assertion to be absurd.
>

Then you should educate yourself <http://amzn.com/0132350882> about modern
software development practices.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Multiple implementations considered harmful was Re: Project Status

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 9:27 AM, Florent Daigniere <
nextg...@freenetproject.org> wrote:
>
> Tor and its ecosystem is a better example...
>

Tor is a much more mature project than Freenet, with vastly more resources,
and a much simpler underlying design, because ultimately it's solving a
simpler problem.  Sure, it would be great to have those advantages, but we
don't.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Multiple implementations considered harmful was Re: Project Status

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:24 AM, Bob Ham <r...@settrans.net> wrote:
>
> > I'm not claiming that Linux won just because they spent more time writing
> > code than documentation
>
> What are you claiming then?
>

That devoting resources to documenting Freenet's protocol is a solution to
a non-problem given the current status of the project.


> > there are many software engineers that
> > died in the decades they waited for microkernels to become useful.
>
> How many have died in the 1.5 decades since Freenet began?
>

Freenet has been usable, and in-use by non-software developers virtually
since the beginning of the project.  Hurd remains an experiment 25 years
later.

> Do you see a long line of software developers just waiting to reimplement
> > Freenet, if only they had comprehensive documentation?  You're dreaming.
> > We barely have the resources to maintain and advance one implementation
> of
> > Freenet.
>
> Have you considered that the reason you have trouble attracting
> developers is because what you're doing is not attractive to them?
> Compare the HURD wiki and the recent expensive revamp of the Freenet
> website.  The HURD wiki is useful.  The Freenet website is shiny.  When
> there are only shiny things and no useful things, hackers stay away.


If you don't find the goals of the project attractive, why are you here?

Actually, I think many more people are interested in anonymity systems like
Freenet today than back when the project began, so no, I don't think that's
why we're having trouble attracting developers.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Multiple implementations considered harmful was Re: Project Status

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:28 AM, Bob Ham <r...@settrans.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 2015-11-03 at 10:14 -0600, Ian wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:11 AM, Bob Ham <r...@settrans.net> wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2015-11-03 at 08:57 -0600, Ian wrote:
>
> > > > You may also be unaware that in the ideal case, well-written code is
> > > > self-documenting
> > >
> > > I find that assertion to be absurd.
> > >
> >
> > Then you should educate yourself <http://amzn.com/0132350882> about
> modern
> > software development practices.
>
> You presume I am not educated on modern software development practices.
> On the contrary, I find your assertion to be absurd precisely because of
> my awareness.


Anyone educated on modern software development practices knows that
well-written code is self-documenting, so I'm not presuming anything, your
statements speak for themselves.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Multiple implementations considered harmful was Re: Project Status

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:36 AM, Florent Daigniere <
nextg...@freenetproject.org> wrote:

> On Tue, 2015-11-03 at 10:11 -0600, Ian wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 9:27 AM, Florent Daigniere <
> > nextg...@freenetproject.org> wrote:
> > > Tor and its ecosystem is a better example...
>
> > Tor is a much more mature project than Freenet,
>
> Well, it's not older
>

You know that's not what "mature" means.


> >  with vastly more resources,
>
> Sure, but that's also by choice and thanks to a consistent strategy
> (funding wise if nothing else).
>

In what way is that "by choice"?


> > and a much simpler underlying design, because ultimately it's solving
> > a
> > simpler problem.
>
> A simpler problem for which they've found a variety of users (and the
> associated sponsors).
>

Yes, so?

We don't because we chose not to. We could have settled on a simpler
> problem;


Sure, there are an infinity of other problems we could have settled on, but
then that wouldn't be Freenet.


> Any of the above is superior to what we're doing at the moment (chose
> not to have a strategy and an absent leader).
>

Find someone better to coordinate the project and I'll happily step-aside
in a heartbeat.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Multiple implementations considered harmful was Re: Project Status

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:38 AM, Bob Ham <r...@settrans.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 2015-11-03 at 10:35 -0600, Ian wrote:
>
> > Anyone educated on modern software development practices knows that
> > well-written code is self-documenting
>
> I disagree.


Read the book I referenced, it will change your mind.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Multiple implementations considered harmful was Re: Project Status

[Ian]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:38 AM, Bob Ham <r...@settrans.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 2015-11-03 at 10:32 -0600, Ian wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:24 AM, Bob Ham <r...@settrans.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I'm not claiming that Linux won just because they spent more time
> writing
> > > > code than documentation
> > >
> > > What are you claiming then?
> > >
> >
> > That devoting resources to documenting Freenet's protocol is a solution
> to
> > a non-problem given the current status of the project.
>
> What is the current status of the project?
>

Read the email I wrote that started this whole thread.


> > If you don't find the goals of the project attractive, why are you here?
>
> What are the goals of the project?


To ensure that two or more people that wish to exchange information have
the freedom to do so without government censorship or punishment.   You're
not aware of this?

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Freenet debian package

[Ian]

On Wed, Oct 28, 2015 at 4:51 AM, Florent Daigniere <
nextg...@freenetproject.org> wrote:

> What's the part you don't understand?
>

Can we please try to maintain a level of civility?  Nobody wants to work
for free only to be insulted.

And yes, I recognize that my own record probably isn't perfect here.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Metrics

[Ian]

On Sat, Oct 24, 2015 at 10:38 PM, <salutarydiacritica...@ruggedinbox.com>
wrote:

> For Pete's sake don't run Google analytics on your site. I saw a ticket
> for it on bug tracker.


Out of interest - why not?

Ian.
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[freenet-dev] A/B testing of website

[Ian Clarke]

It would be great if we could try to use A/B testing to inform future
design changes with the website.  One key metric to monitor would be
"downloads per visit".

To do this we'll need to use some kind of A/B testing framework.  I've used
Optimizely in the past, but it is expensive.  It appears that Google's
"Website Optimizer", which was free, has been discontinued.

Does anyone have any experience with A/B testing frameworks that might be
suitable for our needs?

Ian.

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Re: [freenet-dev] Metrics

[Ian]

On Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 1:56 PM, <salutarydiacritica...@ruggedinbox.com>
wrote:

> Freenet users have the reasonable expectation they won't be tracked by a
> corporate third party when visiting  a privacy promoting website.


Firstly, nobody visiting any website on the web should have such an
expectation, that's one of the reasons for creating Freenet in the first
place.  Freenet is on a server that is hosted by a corporate third party,
accessed via network links that are all owned by corporate third parties -
there is no way around it.

Secondly, the purpose of Freenet is to promote freedom of communication.
There is overlap between that goal and the goal of promoting privacy, but
they're not the same thing, and occasionally they conflict, so we should
avoid conflating the two things.

But I agree that if we can get all the functionality we need without using
Google Analytics then we shouldn't use it, but pretending that you have any
privacy from corporate third parties when visiting any website on the web,
including freenetproject.org, is just promoting ignorance.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] A/B testing of website

[Ian Clarke]

On Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 2:01 PM, <salutarydiacritica...@ruggedinbox.com>
wrote:

> Self hosted A/B network.
>
> https://github.com/maccman/abba


Looks interesting, have you used it?

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Email: i...@freenetproject.org
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Re: [freenet-dev] Git push access

[Ian Clarke]

On Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 7:51 AM, Steve Dougherty <st...@asksteved.com>
wrote:
>
> > Ian, Toad and NextGens are the only current admins of the GitHub org,
> > but none of them are very active on the project. Should we add
> > another more active person as admin?
>
> That would be good.
>

Definitely, any volunteers?

Ian.

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Re: [freenet-dev] Behind the times

[Ian]

On Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 10:09 PM, Steve Dougherty <st...@asksteved.com>
wrote:

> On 10/22/2015 10:58 PM, Ian Clarke wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 9:43 PM, Steve Dougherty <st...@asksteved.com>
> > wrote:
> ...
> >> I don't understand what you mean by this exactly. Reduce padding between
> >> sections and put the download button where? Up in the menu?
> >>
> >
> > Probably below the menu, but in the top-right of the page.  That way it's
> > very prominent, but not the immediate thing that attracts attention.
>
> Why?
>

Because before they download we need to give them at least a tiny bit of
information about why they might want to download.

That's the intent of the slides, which are above the button: it starts
> on "Avoid Censorship" "Freenet is a platform for censorship-resistant
> communication and publishing. ..."
>
> Is that more verbose than you were thinking?
>

I think many of text of these slides are good, but I'm concerned about the
means of presentation - websites do sometimes use slides for things like
user-testimonials, but not the core explanation for why they should be
interested in the software.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Project Status

[Ian]

On Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 10:16 PM, Steve Dougherty <st...@asksteved.com>
wrote:
>
> While it's true that we can't exactly "leave the anonymity to Tor," I do
> think we could be able to make use of Tor. If we can get a TCP transport
> plugin working people can set up a node as a hidden service and reduce
> the visibility of running a node.


If we were getting a lot of complaints about Freenet being too fast, too
easy to install, too easy to use, or not bloated enough, then bundling Tor
would be a great way to solve all of these complaints.

Otherwise, it still seems like a really awful idea.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Behind the times

[Ian]

Yay!

I think it's a huge improvement.

One issue is there are a couple of places that could use a bit more
contrast, particularly the "SUMA Award" logo should probably be brighter.

Another thing is that there is a lot of empty space "above the fold",
mostly to accommodate the central placement of the "Download Freenet"
button I think.

Could we move the "What is Freenet?" section up, and perhaps move the
download link to the top right of the page?

Ian.


On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 5:41 AM, Steve Dougherty <st...@asksteved.com>
wrote:

> The site is now live.
>
> On 10/05/2015 05:22 AM, Steve Dougherty wrote:
> > It's given in the prompt: both are "guest".
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Oct 4, 2015, 11:41 PM Ian <i...@locut.us> wrote:
> >
> >
> > What's the username/pwd for https://testing.freenetproject.org/ ?
> >
> > On Sun, Oct 4, 2015 at 10:40 PM, Steve Dougherty <st...@asksteved.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> On 09/29/2015 07:26 PM, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> >> > Am Dienstag, 29. September 2015, 14:50:27 schrieb Ian Clarke:
> >> >> - Website badly needs an update, it looks very dated and frankly a
> >> bit
> >> >> spammy. Bootstrap <http://getbootstrap.com/>
> >> >> anyone, or even the Github page generator
> >> >> <https://github.com/blog/1081-instantly-beautiful-project-pages>
> >> >> would be a big improvement
> >> >
> >> > Gerard created a new site a few months ago and we've been working on
> >> > finalizing it since then. Yesterday he uploaded a new test-version:
> >
> >> I spent the weekend on this and I think it's almost ready. When I get
> >> more time to devote to it I'll upload it to Transifex and put out a call
> >> for translators. I'd like to avoid deploying it with fewer words
> >> translated than the current site, but I'll put a 2-week maximum on how
> >> long to wait.
> >
> >> The current development state of the site remains here:
> >
> >> https://testing.freenetproject.org/
> >
> >> and my fork is
> >
> >> https://github.com/Thynix/freenet-website
>
>
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Re: [freenet-dev] Behind the times

[Ian Clarke]

On Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 9:43 PM, Steve Dougherty <st...@asksteved.com>
wrote:
>
> > Another thing is that there is a lot of empty space "above the fold",
> > mostly to accommodate the central placement of the "Download Freenet"
> > button I think.
>
> Yep. Ademan and I are looking into reducing the amount of vertical space
> between the menu and the first section on the main page.
>
> > Could we move the "What is Freenet?" section up, and perhaps move the
> > download link to the top right of the page?
>
> I don't understand what you mean by this exactly. Reduce padding between
> sections and put the download button where? Up in the menu?
>

Probably below the menu, but in the top-right of the page.  That way it's
very prominent, but not the immediate thing that attracts attention.

I think right now the first thing people are encouraged to look at is the
Download button, but to figure out why they might want to consider
downloading, they have to scroll down to the "What is Freenet?" section.

I think we need a very concise explanation of why they would want to
download Freenet as the focal point for the front page.

Thoughts?

Ian.

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Re: [freenet-dev] Project Status

[Ian]

On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 6:38 PM, <salutarydiacritica...@ruggedinbox.com>
wrote:

> Step back and take a deep breath. I'm not telling you to shutdown your
> website and foundation and host your project on Tor' s site.
>

I didn't say that, so perhaps you should re-read my last email.


> I'm questioning if the overhead of designing and maintaining yet another
> anonymity protocol makes sense given Freenet's current situation. You can
> concentrate on polishing Freenet UX and storage algorithms instead and
> leave the anonymity to Tor.


As I already said in my previous email, that is nonsense.  Freenet's
"anonymity" is at the core of what Freenet is.  You can't just "unplug" the
anonymity and plug Tor in in it's place.  It doesn't work like that.


> Its an intensive process coming up with something that stands up against
> serious enemies. Tor gets most of the academic community's attention
> improving against attacks all the time. You get this for free by switching
> to their protocol for transport.
>

Tor's anonymity is easier to prove because Tor is way less ambitious than
Freenet (one of the reasons Tor was easily blocked by the Chinese
government).  You're advocating that we replace the very thing that makes
Freenet different.  If we did that, what would be the point of continuing
with the project?

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Project Status

[Ian]

Software isn't like playdough, you can't take two different software
projects and just stick them together, and expect the result to make sense
(even if the projects have related goals).

In terms of the benefits of an alliance with Tor I'm afraid you're being
naive.  From Tor's perspective, an "alliance" with Freenet would make
absolutely no sense.  They'd essentially just be diverting developers,
users, and funding away from their own project.  Don't get me wrong,
they're  nice guys, but it would simply be irrational.

Tor and Freenet might be related at a high-level, but this whole idea that
separate software projects should all be glued together into one huge mass
of bloatware is very misguided.  It's the polar opposite of the Unix
philosophy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy>.  I wish people
would stop suggesting it.  It wouldn't solve any problem and would be a
massive waste of time and resources.

Ian.



On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 4:35 PM, <salutarydiacritica...@ruggedinbox.com>
wrote:

> I am a Freenet user and want you to succeed so look at my words from that
> angle.
>
> You are missing out on an obvious natural alliance with Tor that can bring
> in many benefits from funding, users, publicity and manpower. The Tor
> project also invested a lot in private client side applications like the
> Tor browser and Tor birdy that you can combine.  Not to denigrate your work
> but its fact, their anonymity transport layer is more advanced and has
> undergone more scrutiny and is trusted. I've talked with people who love
> the Freenet concept but are reluctant to use it because they don't feel its
> powerful enough to withstand NSA. I find it hard to convince them otherwise
> when there is a trickle of papers about Freenet's anonymity protection and
> no mention of it being a challenge to NSA like the Tor slides and they
> trust what Snowden used.
>
> With that said, Freenet's real power is resilient and distributed data
> hosting, unmatched by Tor hidden services that were designed as an
> afterthought. Together both technologies are a perfect fit. They should not
> compete.
>
> My point here is to keep the parts of the protocol where Freenet users can
> automatically find each other and request data but to offload the traffic
> hiding part to Tor. Don't put users in a situation where they have to
> choose between both. Each project does one thing well and together they
> give users the cypherpunk vision of freedom.
>
> More users means more technical people who will become interested and help
> out. It becomes self sustaining. You've built it but you need to integrate
> it right and they will come.
>
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Re: [freenet-dev] Dependency management was Re: Behind the times

[Ian]

On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 3:26 AM, <nextg...@freenetproject.org> wrote:
>
> That's far from the only danger...
>
> If we make "building freenet" depend on "running freenet" to "download
> freenet over freenet", I'd like someone to explain to me how it can work
> without trusting someone else's binaries.
>

Can you explain to me how anyone can use a modern computer for anything
without trusting someone else's binaries?  Let's live in reality here.

Regardless, the top priority (as far as this part of the discussion is
concerned) is to migrate the project over to a modern build system, most
likely Gradle.  Support for downloading dependencies from Freenet (or
through Tor) would be nice but should be way down the list of priorities.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Dependency management was Re: Behind the times

[Ian]

Good point.  Or we could mirror the repos in Freenet, more dogfoody.

On Sun, Oct 11, 2015 at 2:37 PM, Zlatin Balevsky <zlat...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Developers who care about their anonymity can force gradle or maven to use
> a tor proxy
>
> On Sun, Oct 11, 2015 at 4:35 PM, Steve Dougherty <st...@asksteved.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On 10/10/2015 04:14 PM, Matthew Toseland wrote:
> > > On 06/10/15 15:10, Ian Clarke wrote:
> > >> On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 4:39 AM, xor <x...@freenetproject.org> wrote:
> > ...
> > > Deploying build-time dependencies via Gradle is not appropriate IMHO:
> It
> > > means updating them is *our* responsibility, and it increases our
> > > maintenance overheads as a result, and reduces the end-user's security.
> > > Updating JUnit etc is the distribution's responsibility, not ours. And
> > > anything that doesn't get updated is a security risk.
> >
> > In what way does it make updating them our responsibility? Checksum
> > pinning does that inherently already. Charles linked to gradle-witness
> > and it looks like exactly what we're looking for: transitive dependency
> > checksum verification. https://github.com/WhisperSystems/gradle-witness
> >
> >
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Re: [freenet-dev] Simplified contribution guideline, was: "Re: Behind the times"

[Ian Clarke]

I agree with the motives of this, but isn't requiring that new developers
personally interact via IRC just to get started an admission of defeat?
That shouldn't be necessary, and there is no reason for it to be
necessary.  It's not necessary in other open source projects.

Ian.

On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 5:06 AM, xor <x...@freenetproject.org> wrote:

> As an alternate solution to the Ant/Maven discussion, here's a different
> approach to attracting new developers...
>
> The complex "Get involved" guide https://freenetproject.org/developer.html
> which currently says how to Git clone / obtain libraries / compile, shall
> be
> replaced by those 3 steps:
>
> > How to contribute to Freenet:
> >
> > 1. Install Freenet: By running Freenet, you can donate part of your
> > diskspace and bandwidth to the community.
> >
> > 2. Chose a subproject you like and want to contribute to:
> > https://wiki.freenetproject.org/Projects
> >
> > 3. Join the developers' chat on IRC at [link to webchat]. Tell us that
> > you'd like to contribute to your project of choice: We will help you
> > with obtaining the source code of your favorite project; and tell you
> where
> > you can find its TODO list.
>
> This avoids the problem of build systems entirely by offering newbies to
> help
> them personally with compiling. Thats a good idea anyway since we'll never
> be
> able to make *ALL* sub-projects use the same build system.
>
> Further, it is more focused on what a new developer is probably interested
> in:
> *What* to work on, not *how* the work will look specifically in terms of
> command line tools.
>
> The sub-project list https://wiki.freenetproject.org/Projects should
> provide
> an up-to-date overview since I spent quite a few hours on completing it
> just
> the last week. I'll also make sure to keep maintaining it, as I think
> having a
> full list of all software built on top of Freenet is absolutely mandatory
> for
> being able to finally get everything bundled-by-default.
>
> Credit for discovering that the current "Get involved" guide is too complex
> goes to Steve! Thanks! :)




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Re: [freenet-dev] Behind the times

[Ian]

On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 2:03 AM, Florent Daigniere <
nextg...@freenetproject.org> wrote:
>
> > Dependency management, and more importantly, Maven (and more recently
> > Gradle) have become pretty-much industry standards, almost no new
> > Java
> > project uses Ant.  If we want to attract new contributors, the fact
> > that we
> > have an outdated build system will be a turn-off for them.
>
> You can push further and ask, are there new projects written in java?
> And the answer is very likely no; that's not what the cool kids are
> doing nowadays.


Java is one of the world's most popular programming languages.  There are
plenty of new projects being written in Java.  Every single Android app for
starters.  And I don't advocate using Gradle because it's what the "cool
kids" use, but because it simplifies things for developers, particularly
getting things set up initially.


> Don't get me wrong, I'm all for modernizing the build system... I just
> doubt that it should be the priority of the few people who still
> contribute.


Perhaps if it weren't for the outdated build system we would have more than
a few people still contributing.


> We all know Ant well enough to build freenet as is.


I'm not concerned about people who are already comfortable with the
existing build system, I'm concerned about future contributors.


> We've reached the stage where we hardly have the resources to merge
> what's contributed (out of the three examples you've picked, we had two
> of them on non-merged branches - the website and travis configs)...
> That goes to show how resource bound we currently are. Changing the
> build system is even more involved... as it entails updating the
> release scripts (that should also be gradle-ified).
>

All the more reason to do what we can to make it easier for new
contributors to contribute.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Behind the times

[Ian Clarke]

On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 4:39 AM, xor <x...@freenetproject.org> wrote:

> [Sorted/trimmed/amended the quotes for readability]
>
> On Monday, October 05, 2015 12:52:08 PM Ian Clarke wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 12:57 AM, xor <x...@freenetproject.org> wrote:
> > Right, but it appears that solutions exist for this with Gradle.
>
> "Apache Ant" = 1 320 000 Google hits
> "Gradle" = 957 000 Google hits
>

That's a terribly unscientific way to assess the popularity of a tool.  As
a professional Java developer please take my word for it when I say that
Apache Ant is an outdated tool, it has been replaced by Maven, and Maven is
in the process of being replaced by Gradle (although we're early in that
process).  If you don't believe me just ask Google, they selected Gradle as
the standard build tool for Android.  Or failing that just ask almost any
other professional Java developer, they'll tell you the same thing.


> > > 2) What can Maven do which Ant cannot do? Do we need those features?
> >
> > Dependency management
>
> By that, do you merely mean downloading some JARs from a fixed URI and
> putting
> them into the current directory; or is it actually even able to install
> current versions of stuff on the system's package manager?
>
> IIRC, our fred Ant builder used to download a fixed freenet-ext.jar to the
> current directory on its own, so that's not a Maven seller yet.
>

No, Gradle does dependency resolution, it would automatically download and
assemble all of the components of freenet-ext.jar, while making it
trivially easy to update to more recent versions of dependencies.

Think of Gradle and Maven as being similar to apt-get on Debian.

But if Maven is indeed capable of using the package manager, I would
> actually
> get VERY hungry for it :)
> I prefer installing binaries from the package manager instead of having
> Maven
> shove truckloads of them into some backyard directory, as only by using the
> package manager I get automated security updates.
>

Maven can assemble everything into a single .jar file.


> > By not using a modern dependency management
> > system we're creating a significant barrier to entry for new contributors
> > to the code.
>
> I speculate you conclude that from at least one of those assumptions:
> The assumption that someone who first wants to compile a project is
> incapable
> or unwilling to install software (such as Ant) to do so.
>

No, I conclude that a modern Java developer will want to use build tools
that have been more-or-less standard for the last decade, instead of an
outdated tool like ant that almost no actively developed Java project uses
any more.


> @Unwilling: I don't know how it works for other people, but whenever I
> compile
> a new piece of software, I already am 100% expecting to have to install a
> TRUCKLOAD of stuff. Almost every software needs some kind of library.
> Ant is just one of them. And there are Ubuntu etc. packages, so people can
> get
> it easily.
>

That is because you are apparently unfamiliar with modern Java build tools
which have proper dependency management.


> > If someone wants to use both Freenet and Tor then they can download them
> > individually, but I see no good reason to bundle two independent pieces
> of
> > software just because they both solve related (but different) problems.
>
> Well, the question is if the user's care about the difference:
>

That seems like a very peculiar criteria with which to decide to bundle any
two projects.  If a user didn't care about the difference between Freenet
and Angry Birds, should we bundle it with Angry Birds?

The only good criteria for bundling two pieces of software is that the
combination is dramatically more useful than either individually (eg. if
one depends on the other).  That wouldn't be the case here, it would just
be two somewhat related pieces of software glued together for no good
reason.

Ian.

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Re: [freenet-dev] Behind the times

[Ian]

What's the username/pwd for https://testing.freenetproject.org/ ?

On Sun, Oct 4, 2015 at 10:40 PM, Steve Dougherty <st...@asksteved.com>
wrote:

> On 09/29/2015 07:26 PM, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> > Am Dienstag, 29. September 2015, 14:50:27 schrieb Ian Clarke:
> >>- Website badly needs an update, it looks very dated and frankly a
> bit
> >>spammy.  Bootstrap <http://getbootstrap.com/>
> >> anyone, or even the Github page generator
> >><https://github.com/blog/1081-instantly-beautiful-project-pages>
> >> would be a big improvement
> >
> > Gerard created a new site a few months ago and we’ve been working on
> > finalizing it since then. Yesterday he uploaded a new test-version:
>
> I spent the weekend on this and I think it's almost ready. When I get
> more time to devote to it I'll upload it to Transifex and put out a call
> for translators. I'd like to avoid deploying it with fewer words
> translated than the current site, but I'll put a 2-week maximum on how
> long to wait.
>
> The current development state of the site remains here:
>
> https://testing.freenetproject.org/
>
> and my fork is
>
> https://github.com/Thynix/freenet-website
>
>
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Re: [freenet-dev] Behind the times

[Ian]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 6:48 AM, Matthew Toseland <t...@amphibian.dyndns.org
> wrote:
>
> Checking a signature or at least a checksum is basic due diligence for
> security-related software. It's not supported reliably by Maven,
> apparently for business reasons.


I haven't looked at it in-depth, but Gradle has something that appears to
be signing support:

  https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/signing_plugin.html

Without a thorough audit of dependencies' source code, and their
dependencies source code, and so on, not to mention maybe even the JRE's
source code, all of this concern for digital signatures on binaries is
security theatre IMHO.

And if we can't or won't keep up with modern development tools then we're
going to severely limit who will contribute to the project, something we
can scarcely afford to do.  A modern Java developer will want to use modern
Java development tools.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Behind the times

[Ian]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 8:34 AM, Matthew Toseland <t...@amphibian.dyndns.org
> wrote:

> On 30/09/15 14:31, Ian wrote:
> >> Checking a signature or at least a checksum is basic due diligence for
> >> security-related software. It's not supported reliably by Maven,
> >> apparently for business reasons.
> >
> > I haven't looked at it in-depth, but Gradle has something that appears to
> > be signing support:
> >
> >   https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/signing_plugin.html
> >
> > Without a thorough audit of dependencies' source code, and their
> > dependencies source code, and so on, not to mention maybe even the JRE's
> > source code, all of this concern for digital signatures on binaries is
> > security theatre IMHO
>


> "The perfect is the enemy of the good". A concept you should be familiar
> with, it applies to security as well as to other aspects of engineering.
> Not being able to achieve perfection is not an excuse for giving up on
> the reasonable steps we CAN take.
>

I'm not opposed to using signing if we can do it without keeping the
project stuck in 2001's development tools - because that will pretty-much
guarantee its slow death.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Behind the times

[Ian]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 4:08 PM, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_...@web.de>
wrote:

> Am Mittwoch, 30. September 2015, 08:42:38 schrieb Ian:
> > I'm not opposed to using signing if we can do it without keeping the
> > project stuck in 2001's development tools - because that will pretty-much
> > guarantee its slow death.
>
> Are we actually stuck in 2001’s development tools?
>

When it comes to dependency management, yes.  Maven started in 2002, and
has become standard in the years since.

There might be some tools which are not up to date, but that’s either
> because no one took it up, or because the benefit does not outweight
> the cost (we have to update all contributors to the new system, and we
> have quite diverse development setups).


> There are more important things to do — like getting the debian
> package working again. And for that, using proven though sometimes a
> bit clunky systems is an advantage.


I'd say a higher priority would be making Freenet look remotely like a
modern piece of software.  So many aspects of Freenet seem like a time
capsule from over a decade ago.

Ian.
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[freenet-dev] Behind the times

[Ian Clarke]

Bringing an off-list conversation onto the list (I failed to cc the list in
the first place).

---

Unfortunately these aren't the only ways we've fallen behind the times
(hard to believe we've been doing this for 15 years!).

   - Maven/Gradle are now de-facto standard build systems for Java apps,
   and yet we're still using Ant (I was never convinced by the security
   argument against these tools, since we don't audit 3rd-party libraries
   anyway)

   - Website badly needs an update, it looks very dated and frankly a bit
   spammy.  Bootstrap <http://getbootstrap.com/>
anyone, or even the Github page generator
   <https://github.com/blog/1081-instantly-beautiful-project-pages>
would be a big improvement

   - We could also use an automatic unit testing system like Travis CI
   <https://travis-ci.org/>
(which is free for O.S projects)

Of course, all of these things will require work.  Fortunately, most can be
tackled independently of each-other and so we can bite off one piece at a
time, if there are any volunteers to take ownership of them.

Ian.

-- 
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Founder, The Freenet Project
Email: i...@freenetproject.org
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Re: [freenet-dev] We've been invited to an European Parliament conference

[Ian]

Done

On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 7:13 AM, Florent Daigniere <
nextg...@freenetproject.org> wrote:

> I'll make it work too.
>
> Ian, do you mind replying to them Ccing both me and Arne back?
>
> Regards,
> Florent
>
>
> On Fri, 2015-09-11 at 11:36 +0200, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> > From my side it would work (I reserved the time).
> >
> > Best wishes,
> > Arne
> >
> > Am Donnerstag, 10. September 2015, 16:36:59 schrieb Ian Clarke:
> > > I'm happy to handle the initial communication if that makes sense,
> > > given
> > > that I was invited.  Just let me know.
> > >
> > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 4:27 AM, xor <x...@freenetproject.org>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Thursday, September 10, 2015 09:24:19 AM xor wrote:
> > > > > On Thursday, September 10, 2015 12:21:19 AM Arne
> > > > > Babenhauserheide wrote:
> > > > > > Thank you!
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I think the first one to talk to them is Ian, because he’s
> > > > > > the one who
> > > > > > got invited. I should find out tomorrow evening whether I can
> > > > > > free the
> > > > > > days.
> > > > >
> > > > > Ian already said he can't do it:
> > > > >
> > > > > On Tuesday, September 08, 2015 03:11:42 PM Ian wrote:
> > > > > > That sounds interesting, unfortunately I won't be able to do
> > > > > > it (it
> > > > would
> > > > > > be a transatlantic trip), but hopefully someone can and we
> > > > > > can track
> > > > down
> > > > > > whoever sent that message.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Ah sorry, I misunderstood you.
> > > > I thought you wanted Ian to go to the conference; but it seems
> > > > you actually
> > > > meant Ian should be the one to tell them that someone else is
> > > > going.
> > > >
> > > > I would suggest we wait with requesting Ian to do so until
> > > > Florent/you have
> > > > decided who can attend.
> > > >
> > > > ___
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> > > > https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Konstruktive Kritik:
> >
> > - http://draketo.de/licht/krude-ideen/konstruktive-kritik
> >
> > ___
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>
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Re: [freenet-dev] Multiple SourceForge issues

[Ian]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 12:30 PM, Matthew Toseland <
t...@amphibian.dyndns.org> wrote:

> On 10/09/15 09:35, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> > Am Donnerstag, 10. September 2015, 10:12:19 schrieb xor:
> >> There was someone on IRC whose Freenet wasn't working because it was
> >> build01217. He got that because our SF account still labels that as
> latest.
> > That’s horrible. The user also checked the version on our site, and
> > since it was 0.7.5, too, he or she used the SF link.
> >
> > I think we should take this as a strong cue to at least release 0.7.6
> > the next few months, and then increment the version number *at least*
> > whenever there are changes which can cause older versions to no longer
> > connect.
> I did that once. Ian got really angry.


Matthew, please do me a favor and stop characterizing my opinion on things,
because whenever you do you almost always manage to get it completely
wrong.  If I have an opinion on something I am very capable of expressing
it myself, that way people can be sure that they're getting my actual
opinion, not your (frequently pejorative) version of what I think or
thought in the past.

I have been using Semantic Versioning (http://semver.org/) on a few
projects and found it to be a good approach.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] We've been invited to an European Parliament conference

[Ian Clarke]

I'm happy to handle the initial communication if that makes sense, given
that I was invited.  Just let me know.

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 4:27 AM, xor <x...@freenetproject.org> wrote:

> On Thursday, September 10, 2015 09:24:19 AM xor wrote:
> > On Thursday, September 10, 2015 12:21:19 AM Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> > > Thank you!
> > >
> > > I think the first one to talk to them is Ian, because he’s the one who
> > > got invited. I should find out tomorrow evening whether I can free the
> > > days.
> >
> > Ian already said he can't do it:
> >
> > On Tuesday, September 08, 2015 03:11:42 PM Ian wrote:
> > > That sounds interesting, unfortunately I won't be able to do it (it
> would
> > > be a transatlantic trip), but hopefully someone can and we can track
> down
> > > whoever sent that message.
> >
>
> Ah sorry, I misunderstood you.
> I thought you wanted Ian to go to the conference; but it seems you actually
> meant Ian should be the one to tell them that someone else is going.
>
> I would suggest we wait with requesting Ian to do so until Florent/you have
> decided who can attend.
>
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-- 
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Blog: http://blog.locut.us/
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Re: [freenet-dev] We've been invited to an European Parliament conference

[Ian]

I agree with Arne and disagree with Markus.  The worst possible way to deal
with politicians is to not talk to them.

It might be unpopular to say, but in my experience most politicians are
smart, and genuinely want to do the right thing, but they're frequently
misinformed because they're only exposed to lobbyists who know exactly how
to work the system, and the lobbyists win if there is no voice to oppose
them.  People don't enter politics to get rich, not in the EU anyway.

Arne, it would be really great if you could go, please let me know if there
is anything I can do to help.


On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 6:15 PM Arne Babenhauserheide 
wrote:

> Am Dienstag, 8. September 2015, 19:50:22 schrieb Markus:
> > I would like to suggest to never ever visit politicians.
>
> I disagree with that. We cannot win on purely technical grounds —
> states (or big companies) could just ban all encryption. But technical
> means can create a situation in which those politicians who are on the
> side of free communication can win the political battle against
> surveillance.
>
> Best wishes,
> Arne
> --
> A man in the streets faces a knife.
> Two policemen are there it once. They raise a sign:
>
> “Illegal Scene! Noone may watch this!”
>
> The man gets robbed and stabbed and bleeds to death.
> The police had to hold the sign.
>
> …Welcome to Europe, citizen. Censorship is beautiful.
>
>( http://draketo.de/stichwort/censorship )
>
>
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Re: [freenet-dev] We've been invited to an European Parliament conference

[Ian]

That sounds interesting, unfortunately I won't be able to do it (it would
be a transatlantic trip), but hopefully someone can and we can track down
whoever sent that message.

On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 8:27 AM xor <x...@freenetproject.org> wrote:

> [15:18]  Dear Ian Clarke,  The Civil Liberties Justice and
> Home
> Affairs Committee (LIBE) and the Science and Technology Options Assessment
> Panel (STOA) of the European Parliament are organising, in association with
> the Luxemburg Presidency of the European Council, on 8 -9 December 2015 at
> the
> European Parliament, a high-level conference on ‘Protecting on-line
> privacy by
> enhancing IT security and EU IT autonomy’.
> [15:19]  This high-level conference will gather about 100
> academics and policy-makers to discuss possible European policies for
> enhancing privacy protection on the Internet in a post-Snowden world. This
> event is organised as a follow-up to the report adopted by the EP on 12
> March
> 2015 "on the US NSA surveillance programme, surveillance bodies in various
> Member States and their impact on EU citizens’ fundamental rights and on
> transat
>
>
> The guy unfortunately left before mentioning more details, and the message
> seems cropped.
> Anyone willing to try to contact those folks?
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Re: [freenet-dev] Great series of Freenet articles

[Ian Clarke]

Yes, I didn't realize it was yours until after I sent the last email.
Really great!

On Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 15:41 Arne Babenhauserheide arne_...@web.de wrote:

 Am Freitag, 31. Juli 2015, 07:34:31 schrieb Ian Clarke:
  I'm surprised I didn't see these earlier:
 http://draketo.de/english/freenet

 I’m glad you like them!

 I’ve been writing about Freenet from time to time, but the accesses
 were aroud 1000 to 8000 per article - enough to reach some of the
 interested people, but not the reach needed to really draw in lots of
 new users.

  This one is quite recent:
 
 http://draketo.de/light/english/freenet/communication-primitives-1-files-and-sites

 The access stats of that article are a bit different from the rest:
 Instead of receiving many hits early and then only very few more, it
 seems to get a small but steady flow of readers (it’s at more than
 1200 accesses in the totally unreliable and likely overestimating
 Drupal reader statistics).

 Best wishes,
 Arne
 --
 singing a part of the history of free software:

 - http://infinite-hands.draketo.de


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[freenet-dev] Thoughts on FProxy

[Ian Clarke]

In the years since we designed FProxy, UI design has come a long way.  In a
sense we were ahead of our time, since many desktop GUIs are now
implemented as web apps (eg. Slack), although embedded in native containers.

In more recent years a stack of tools have emerged for designing webapps.
JavaScript is growing up, ES6
http://weblogs.asp.net/dwahlin/getting-started-with-es6-%E2%80%93-the-next-version-of-javascript
supports some nice language features like a compact lambda syntax, and
pre-processors like TypeScript http://www.typescriptlang.org/ introduce
static typing, while allowing use of ES6 features on browsers that don't
yet support it.

Bootstrap http://getbootstrap.com/ allows non-designers (ie. us) to build
pretty UIs, and React http://facebook.github.io/react/ allows concurrent
updates of the UI in a convenient form.  GraphQL
http://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2015/05/01/graphql-introduction.html
is an emerging replacement for REST for client-server communication (and a
library https://github.com/andimarek/graphql-java exists for server-side
Java support), although it's still quite early.

Reading this article
http://draketo.de/english/freenet/forgotten-cryptopunk-paradise in
particular, it hits home the potential Freenet could have with a modern UI,
and the tools now exist for us to build a solid UI even if UI design isn't
the core competency of the typical Freenet volunteer.

Thoughts?

Ian.
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[freenet-dev] Great series of Freenet articles

[Ian Clarke]

I'm surprised I didn't see these earlier: http://draketo.de/english/freenet

This one is quite recent:
http://draketo.de/light/english/freenet/communication-primitives-1-files-and-sites

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Github and code review

[Ian]

On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 3:16 PM, Arne Babenhauserheide arne_...@web.de
wrote:

 It’s work from paid contributors for which
 we need structures which reduce the cost of code-review compared to
 what you propose


I haven't heard of any proposal other than my own that would reduce the
cost of code-review.  What specifically has been proposed that would reduce
the cost of code review, and why specifically would it reduce the cost of
code-review?


 - and not reviewing code isn’t an option anymore


My hope is that if the process of code review can be made less painful,
which is the intent of my proposal, then we will have sufficient resources
to do comprehensive code reviews.

However, if we do not have sufficient resources to do comprehensive code
reviews then our options are either to make do without comprehensive code
reviews, or to suspend development of Freenet.


 since toad left we managed to decentralize the project structures to
 some degree, and allowing unreviewed pushes would void the additional
 safety against compromise and dependendcy on individuals which that
 decentralization offers. We need to get to a point where we can cope
 with having anyone leave the group without notice, and that means that
 every change must be known by at least two people.


I agree, that is a desirable situation.  The best way to achieve that is to
ensure that the code-review process is as streamlined and painless as
possible, which is why I've proposed a process that I know to be
streamlined and painless because I've used it myself (as have many others).

It is very clear that the current process is neither streamlined nor is it
painless, so change is clearly necessary.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Github and code review

[Ian]

On Sat, Mar 28, 2015 at 7:18 PM, Arne Babenhauserheide arne_...@web.de
wrote:

 Am Samstag, 28. März 2015, 11:32:30 schrieb Ian:
   I agree with Bombe that it’s not nice to lose the history, but with
   git that’s the best we can do. It’s a limitation of the tool.
 
  It's not a limitation of the tool, it's a limitation created by your
 desire
  to misuse the tool.

 We have a need, we use a tool. To fulfil the need with the tool we
 have to misuse the tool. Consequently the tool is too limited for our
 usecase.

 There are several hacks around that - including merge commits with
 explanations and only ever looking at merge commits (hiding all
 non-merges) - and that these hacks are used by others shows that we
 aren’t the only ones with these needs, but git offers no clean
 solution.

 Sadly there also isn’t a clean way forward: Git users tend to be
 pretty defensive of their tool, and as such I expect that moving to a
 different tool would hurt more than it would help. So we’re stuck with
 the hacks.


There is a clear way forward, we can use Github for code review the way
that it was clearly intended to be used, and the way 95% of competent
development teams use it.  That is to review pull requests, not commits.


  It certainly works very well for my team (with a larger codebase
  than Freenet).  We've never had any of the problems you guys seem to
  be so concerned about.

 Do you run a free software community with vastly differing amount of
 worktime per week?


No, but I see nothing about Freenet that would make this work any less well.



 We cannot expect people to be able to review every 4 days.


Yes we can, that is how code review is supposed to happen.  If people can't
be bothered to review code then that is unfortunate, but we can't allow
development to grind to a halt because of it.

The complaints I've seen are not that reviews are too frequent, but rather
that when they do occur people are required to review massive changes.  A
code review should only require a few minutes.


 This is a
 reality we cannot change without having more paid
 developers. Different from a company, we have to structure our
 workflow in a way which keeps review from becoming a bottleneck while
 ensuring that all code is reviewed.


Nothing you are advocating will change anything if we simply don't have
enough people willing to do code reviews.  At least with my proposal it
will be a much less painful process than it appears to be today.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Github and code review

[Ian]

On Sat, Mar 28, 2015 at 11:13 AM, Arne Babenhauserheide arne_...@web.de
wrote:

 I agree with Bombe that it’s not nice to lose the history, but with
 git that’s the best we can do. It’s a limitation of the tool.


It's not a limitation of the tool, it's a limitation created by your desire
to misuse the tool.

Individual commits should not be reviewed, pull requests should.  I'm
really surprised that people are so resistant to this, this is widely
accepted practice.  It certainly works very well for my team (with a larger
codebase than Freenet).  We've never had any of the problems you guys seem
to be so concerned about.

If the pull request is too big to be reviewed, then it should have been
broken into small pull requests.  Typically a pull request should represent *at
most* 4 days worth of work.

Ian.
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Re: [freenet-dev] Github and code review

[Ian Clarke]

On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 4:39 PM, Ian Clarke i...@freenetproject.org wrote:

 That is precisely how every mature project works. Just because neither
 your business ventures nor your involvement in open source are mature
 doesn't mean there aren't projects out there - both open source (Linux,
 Wine) and businesses (Steve's employer, presumably Google, etc) - which
 care about code quality.


 Wow.  Why would you say something so stupid in a forum where future
 employers could potentially see it?

 You forget that I've seen your code, it wouldn't come anywhere close to
 passing a code review by even the least experienced developer on my
 company's engineering team, so please don't presume to lecture me about
 code quality, or how mature software projects work.

 I really hope they teach you how to be less of an asshole during your
 computer science course, or you'll have a very hard time getting or keeping
 a job, either commercial or in academia.  Your previous paragraph would be
 a firing offense at most companies.  Professional engineering teams simply
 don't tolerate asshole behavior any more.


Ugh, this interaction was exactly the type of thing we need to avoid.
Attacking each-other's competence serves no useful purpose whatsoever.

Ian.

-- 
Founder, The Freenet Project
Email: i...@freenetproject.org
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