[GNUnet-developers] FAQ, netiquette etc.

[Igor Wronsky]

On Tue, 4 Feb 2003, Tom Barnes-Lawrence wrote:

>  OK, to follow up from that, it's still hardly finished, but there is
> certainly stuff to read. Some of you guys have possibly noticed my
> propensity for excessive verbiage! Well its been put to work here.
> So if anybody's interested, the address is:
> http://www.angelfire.com/super2/duologue/gnunet/
> Got that? If there's anything I've put there that I shouldn't have, like
> said something that is inaccurate or that will give the project bad PR, etc,
> then please let me know.
>  Also, as I said previously, let me know if it'd be a problem to have
> alternative sources of information (I can understand people wanting to
> keep the main project site as the one definitive place to find out
> about the project, there is a certain sense to that), and I can take
> it down and just leave that page of my site for putting my client
> software on (well, *when* that exists..)

First, my personal opinion is that it's perfectly healthy to
have anything GNUnet related generated and maintained by
individuals and/or groups and not just by some "central party".
This fits the p2p and open source philosophy, distributedness
and all kinds of paranoia scenarios very well. But it doesn't
mean that the independently generated materials were
disliked by the core group, or not supported - practically
or in spirit. I guess the only good reason to be against
something would be its too clear potential to cause
unnecessary trouble. ;) Everything else is fine.

I've now read your FAQ and the netiquette. They look
quite good already - they explain plainly enough some
of the core issues. And thats very important. We can't
expect average joe to waddle through academic publications
or protocol definitions.

Here's some comments/suggestions that came to mind, but I'm
sure the docs on the whole will get more polished if you keep
working on them.

Why should anybody want to use it?
  : explain briefly how gnunet addresses the listed problems

How does it work?
  : explain source-rewriting as a means of anonymity
    (not just randomness)

What does GNUnet do to stop...
  : note that data/queries are not sent exactly in broadcast
    manner, that'd be like gnutella and inefficient. Instead,
    a couple of target nodes are chosen based on hash-closeness
    (to the request) and a little randomness.

So nothing major (others may have other opinions). But I'm
looking forward to see the rest completed.


Igor