I like this new project though. It seems cool.
Reusing the name of a longstanding software project for a similar but distinct project with wildly different security guarantees is hazardous; it means that existing documentation which directs people to use "Freenet" in a specific way may expose them to unexpected risks. Please reconsider.
'freenet' is an isp in my country, and if this does not hint at it enough, too generic of a term
The name change decision was made over a year ago after a long debate and very careful consideration. There is risk but risk is inevitable if you want to make progress.
There was no "careful consideration" whatsoever.
What you did was the opposite of careful in fact:
Without ANY prior discussion with the maintainers of the existing Freenet project you came to the mailing list and DICTATED your decision of reusing the name "Freenet".
It's all publicly documented in the mailing list archive, see the thread "Important Announcement: Freenet naming change" of Ian Clarke (Ian Clarke is the user "sanity" I am replying to here):
https://www.mail-archive.com/devl@freenetproject.org/
When you dictated this, the team said they're against it - and you did it anyway.
Yes, you claimed you discussed it with the "board" of the project!
But the "board" only contains people who haven't talked to the team in over a decade. Of course they shrugged off your decision because the only way they are in contact with the project is through what you say, so you can shape their opinion however you please by selectively deciding what you tell them.
It was a very sad act of disgracing the effort of volunteer contributors.
And it isn't even in the best interest of your new project either, because it seems to haunt every discussion about it.
How about thinking about whether you made a mistake?
Mistakes happen and aren't bad. What's bad is never admitting one.
The decision to rebrand Locutus as Freenet 2023 was not made lightly or without discussion. On the contrary, I had an extensive discussion with the lead maintainer of the original codebase starting over a year before the decision was announced.
The primary reason for the redesign was to address the significant changes in technology and the web since the original Freenet was first designed in 1999 and underwent its last major redesign in 2005. These different eras brought different technologies and problems. To effectively address today's challenges, a comprehensive redesign was necessary.
As the architect of Freenet, it was my responsibility to make this decision based on what would lead to the best end result, even if it wasn't the most popular choice. The goal was to create software that could gain sufficient adoption to tackle the serious problems we're seeing with centralization today.
I understand that this decision was controversial and not everyone agreed with it. However, it was made to ensure that Freenet could continue to innovate and adapt in the face of modern challenges. Mistakes can happen, but in this case, the decision was made with careful consideration and a focus on the long-term goals of the project. I stand by my decision.
I appreciate the contributions of all volunteers and maintainers, and I deeply respect their work. The goal was never to overshadow their efforts but to build on the legacy of Freenet in a way that meets current and future needs.
I hope this clarifies the situation and provides some context for the decision.
As did the whole core development team once this was announced. And most users.
I warned you that this would cause massive problems.
And I am still cleaning up the mess it created.
I'm not going to change the name again. I carefully weighed up the pros and cons over the course of a year - debating the issue with those that disagreed. Eventually I made a call as the architect of Freenet. It's not without risk, but risks are sometimes necessary.
People are entitled to disagree but I'm not going to relitigate it at this point.
I have one question for you: how would you compare Freenet to Veilid (https://veilid.com/)?
Freenet is designed to be a complete drop-in replacement for the world wide web, handling the discovery, distribution, and execution of an ecosystem of decentralized software. It's a platform. Similar to how installing a browser gives you access to the entire web, installing Freenet gives you access to all decentralized services built on it.
Freenet's most unique architectural feature is that it's a global key-value store where keys are cryptographic contracts that control what values are permissible under the key and how these values can change. This is the key (pun intended) idea that makes it so general purpose.
My impression with Veilid is that it's more a set of tools and libraries that can be incorporated into software - but it isn't a platform in its own right that can allow software to be discovered and distributed.
Think of it like the difference between buying a car (freenet) or a crank shaft that must be integrated with other components to be useful.
Using (blinded) proof of donation as an anti-abuse signal is a clever band-aid but seems fraught in the long term. Is there a plan to switch off of it to something less centralized, or is it staying this way until it causes problems?
Thank you :)
> Using (blinded) proof of donation as an anti-abuse signal is a clever band-aid but seems fraught in the long term.
Agreed.
> Is there a plan to switch off of it to something less centralized, or is it staying this way until it causes problems?
These blind trust tokens are a proof-of-concept because while it is anonymous and has the benefit of funding the project, it is centralized which is far from ideal.
Proof-of-work could be used as a decentralized mechanism for mitigating abuse but I don't like deliberately burning energy. I quite like a concept called "proof-of-trust" that I describe here [1], but the design needs to be fleshed out.
[1] https://freenet.org/blog/799/proof-of-trust-a-wealth-unbiase...