[Freedombox-discuss] Fwd: Store-and-forward is a necessity

[Samuel Rose]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 9:22 AM, Venessa Miemis <venessamiemis at gmail.com> wrote:
> can't remember if i saw this post from this google group or
> elsewhere... sorry if double posting. from freedombox board:
>
> From:           John Gilmore <gnu-r+Tv4kcVSiE-AT-public.gmane.org>
> To:             freedombox-discuss-XbBxUvOt3X2LieD7tvxI8l/i77bcL1HB-AT-
> public.gmane.org, gnu-r+Tv4kcVSiE-AT-public.gmane.org
> Subject:                'No sysadmin' is the key to Freedom Box
> Date:           Fri, 04 Mar 2011 03:14:47 -0800
> Message-ID:             <201103041114.p24BEliu000459 at new.toad.com>
> Archive-link:           Article, Thread
> I'm glad that people are thinking about ways to build distributed
> meshlike store-and-forward networks with replacement connectivity
> after a politician tries to "turn off" the Internet because the public
> will has become inconvenient for that politician.  But...
>
> Let's not put the cart before the horse.  The first stage in this
> project should be to build a rock-solid reliable implementation of
> what already works.  Cleaned up around the edges so that an ordinary
> human being can "sysadmin" it, running on super cheap dead simple mass
> market hardware.  The essential insight of the freedom box is that you
> don't NEED an air-conditioned server room full of expensive stuff to
> run Internet services -- all you need is a $100 box and perhaps a $100
> disk drive for it.  It's the "hundred dollar server" rather than the
> "hundred dollar laptop".  But today you need to learn too much, and
> waste too much of your time, to run such a server -- even if the
> hardware and software was free.
>
This all seems like a job for a well-crafted/configured embedded linux
distro, and open source hardware like BeagleBoard (especially the new
one http://beagleboard.org/hardware-xM ) This is at least a basis for
getting towards a system that requires little sys-admin etc
Beagleboard also gives us a way to think about how distributed servers
are going to work in Android, too. There can be interoperability
between a distributed server that runs on Android, and Freedombox.



> Only after that stuff is up and solid in ten thousand homes, should we
> be trying to ship sysadmin-free encrypted peer to peer facebook and
> twitter.  Because we don't even yet have those applications written
> for experts today.  We're 1% of the way there.  Let somebody else
> pound that into working shape first.
>


I think there's a basis for a learner "web" in some of these cases,
especially given new-ish software like nginx, concurrency in many
programming languages, etc. Let's think about how to bridge the gap
with existing web technologies, and bring work like diaspora,
StatusNet/GNU Social (maybe with lean db as opposed to mysql), etc
There's still room for the web in the distributed internet. It just
needs a few changes in the assumptions about how things are going to
work.

> Ditto for peer-to-peer WiFi networking with your neighbors, backup
> UUCP store-and-forward Deep Space Network links, etc.  Get it working
> in some nice expert test labs first -- they deploy it in some
> production geek centers for a few years -- don't bog down the freedom
> box project with it yet.  Evolve from simple to complex.
>
> Even if you ran an extra Ethernet cable over the back fence (or down
> the hall) to your neighbor, which is a simpler configuration and one
> that I recommend that we support in preference to crummy crowded WiFi,
> we STILL don't have software that knows how and when to use it to
> provide backup connectivity without sysadmin.  Build that!  Give the
> hardware guys a reason to put a 2nd or 3rd separate Ethernet interface
> onto their $100 box.  In urban areas, an extra 100-ft Ethernet cable
> is all that most people will need to "mesh" with their neighbors.
> It'd run 100x as fast as WiFi, and the hardware tells you when it
> gets plugged in, so it doesn't need a configuration interface.  Linux
> can route and NAT the packets just fine, it just doesn't know WHEN to.
> We're 10% of the way there.
>
> The Freedom Box project will succeed or fail on whether it works
> "without sysadmin".  If only trained sysadmins can figure out how to
> be free, the society won't be free.  It's like the early days of the
> telephone, when they couldn't figure how to scale up the system
> without having every third person be a trained "Operator".  Make the
> system operate itself.  That's where the biggest amount of technical
> work needs to go.  And not just in software -- though that's a very
> good start -- but in hardware and in user experience design.  When
> millions can buy it and plug it in without training, then millions
> can be freed from central servers and central surveillance.  Not
> before.
>
>        John Gilmore
>

I definitely sympathize with this point of view. Yet, another
perspective is that jumping straight to the goal of "no sysadmin"
actually isn't fair to us people who will actually help these projects
reach that goal (mostly for free, in our spare time, etc). Let's keep
that goal, but let's have some breathing room in these early phases
for experimentation, filling evolutionary niches, etc. I mean, that is
what is actually going to happen anyway, so I guess what I am saying
is let's realize that is what is going on now :)

-- 
--
Sam Rose
Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation
Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
skype: samuelrose
email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
http://futureforwardinstitute.com
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"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
ambition." - Carl Sagan