Ofc, we still have docker for network apps too, which can help with installing local dependencies. It’s a bit specialist for the average user though.
Using snaps or PPAs could be ideal for Linux/Ubuntu/debian users though.
For android, it would be great if the store app just downloaded apps using the native client libs. Certainly, we can run rust compiled apps too. Would be an interesting one to explore.
The part of original vision once was PtD concept (pay-the-developer). Now, that IF devs are running on a loss, not knowing if they will even get any reward, devs from the Team take part in internal hackathons. Instead taking care of core and APIs, they overlap and compete with unpaid community devs. That further increases organizational centralization, not mentioning they are funded from the Bamboo Fund, which was meant for the oposite purpose:
That’s my part of the rant in this topic 
Unfair?
My dream scenario would be a situation, when teams of independent app devs are tipped, use grants, get supported by the Foundation, crowdfunded etc., and develop in open source paradigm. I tried that with Autonomi Community Token project and succeeded to some extent, which gives hope, taking into account Autonomi’s popularity and relatively small community size.
If it comes to Apple / Microsoft, if anyone wants to test apps on Autonomi, Linux is available also through virtualization. These companies are in fact doing good job with popularizing Linux here
I kind of like that the team is doing app dev work too, as they experience first-hand the challenges community devs are having building apps. Also, community devs should be able to build on what the team comes up with. So in a way it seems unfair, but if the top priority is a thriving ecosystem of high quality apps, I think it’s probably on balance a positive.
Another option for monetisation will be launching an app token, once your (or another!) token solution and DEX are operating well. I know some won’t like that idea, but it is pretty much inevitable.
Yea, I thought the internal hackathon thing was a smack in the face. Get the core network fixed. If you want to do apps, go do it after work for no money, then you can see how real Autonomi app developers operate. I didn’t realize that the BambooGarden Fund was paying for that?!? If that’s true, that’s bull$hit. MaidSafe wants devs, they want apps, they have a fund dedicated to pay out developers, but nothing trickles down. No financial support, No marketing. Even the whole IF concept of “backing” is a joke. Nobody is backing apps with any financial support. I know of one IF contender who just stopped working when they realized “backing” didn’t mean helping the developer. It was and is just a scheme to enrich the whales and enable them to vote on which app they want to see. This whole thing leaves a really sour taste in my mouth. Maybe after IF everything gets better and there is some grand plan that will be set into motion. If so, I’ll be the first to apologize for these disparaging remarks because I really do want to see this network succeed. But right now, I’m very disappointed and discouraged.
In this post David writes about BGF being used for some wages:
hmmm - in maidsafes defense I think it makes sense to try and do some “dev work” to get a feeling on how using their libs really feels and if it’s tools that feel ergonomic or not …
…or if they e.g. have inconsistencies …
…I think it’s good when maidsafe devs they try to use their own tools to create something useful.
I’m looking forward to them developing on main net as I think things will start to get better for devs after the team sees the issues first hand.
If anyone is curious, I went through the process of creating a Google Play Developer account to deliver apps through their app store. Same restriction: any app dealing with cryptocurrency must be submitted by a government certified organization with a valid D.U.N.S. number. At least they tell you up front before you pay any money. From their description, it is something to do with crypto being treated as a “Financial Services” application, which is all tied up in red tape. I’m guessing Apple is the same, they just don’t spell it out for you and take their cut up front.
I’m not surprised, but it is easier to avoid the Google app store - you can install anything, as long as you acknowledge the risk.
However, if what you install is another app store, I believe the user can use that to install anything that new app store allows.
Ofc, it is another risk hurdle for folks to jump over, but those in the space may understand why it is necessary.
How do all the illegal football streaming apps make it onto the App Store?
why not just develop web apps? Anyone can open URL on all systems and devices.
Money, huh, you are of course correct. I see even bigger problem. There is close to 0 feedback from everyone about developer’s works. Developers publish info about updates here in forum, very few people checks that. My guess is that total amount of people who ever installed any community project is less than 15.
I know it is common problem for 99.99 % of opensource projects:) Google play and Apple app store have millions of free apps that are not used and broke their publishers enthusiasm.
This IF whatever it is is just another crypto gambling locking hype scheme.
It is hard to find developers for this project, losing existing ones is a huge mistake. I think there should be some clearnet website with all projects, links to git, instructions etc.. some central place where common people can come and discover projects.. Not just those who participate in that IF scheme. I think, it would be beneficial to have someone from Autonomi team who would take care for devs, help testing, create documentation, promote those projects, etc…
I expected that someone from community would create such website, but I was wrong.
There will be at least one more, me, when the current network side problems get solved.
I have zero interest to wonder about the possible bugs with the app developers, when the bugs are in fact on the network.
But after those get sorted, I’m going to try some apps and give my feedback.
I hope @zettawatt all this is not putting you off. Yours, as well as the other IF devs, is a fantastic effort!
Your Colony app, paired with a lightweight AI, just to augment search, accessing private, or public, searchable data, would be amazing on a phone.
I fear focus on mutable data is hindering at the moment.
And where’s PdP/PtD, is it still possible, especially with mutable data?
Sporadically on, but still following closely and with hope….
Definitely.
I feel the emissions situation is a huge missed opportunity. It’s currently funding something unnecessary while devs are starved of the funds they need to develop apps, which the success of the network is dependent on.
At this stage:
The Network NEEDS devs.
The Network doesn’t need millions of nodes.
The Network is paying for millions of nodes.
The Network is not paying devs.
This under-resourcing of devs will mean devs won’t be as focused, and apps won’t be as good as they could be. Some passionate devs are already getting exasperated by the situation.
Suggestion: Use some emissions to support devs
Apparently significant portions of the tokens emitted to node runners is currently being sold off, to the effect of around $20k / month, representing a big portion of the emitted ANT.
If some of these emissions were supporting devs rather than node operators, it’d be far more beneficial to the Autonomi ecosystem & help devs get quality apps together.
If node rewards were reduced to 25% of current levels, with 75% going to community devs, I expect this would encourage and support their work, while reducing the incentive for excessive node numbers being run. It may also help attract new devs to work on apps.
IF is great, but it doesn’t let the devs shift focus to their Autonomi focused work in the way real financial support could.
Proposal to fund devs from emissions: (feel free to create your own proposal - throw things around a bit to get something that would be optimal / could work):
How to distribute dev rewards?
Option 1) Foundation allocates a portion of the 75% to each active community dev (IF or otherwise) who has delivered and is continuing work on apps for Autonomi. Limit to e.g. top 30 projects based on active development and delivered apps / progress.
Option 2) Node operators receive 25% ANT as emissions, and 75% ‘ANTDEV’ voting tokens. These are used to vote for allocations to devs, a bit like how IF voting. Each month, devs receive a portion of the 75% of emissions based on their portion of ‘ANTDEV’ votes received that month.
Option 3) Just pay it out to IF finalists, either equally, or based on percentage of ‘backing’ achieved. Hopefully these finalists would share some of their earnings with any dependencies their app relies on (e.g. dweb / anttp).
I proposed supporting devs with emissions previously, arguing it’s economically wasteful to fund unnecessary nodes, but this was ignored.
Now that it’s clear some big players with serious equipment at their disposal are dumping the majority of ANT that comes onto the market with close to zero ecosystem benefit delivered, would the team reconsider using ANT tokenomics to do something more productive, at least for a time?
What do people think? Would supporting devs be a better use for emissions? Even if for a set time, e.g. 1 year?
If people like the idea, let’s get a workable proposal and see if the team might consider something like it.
I largely agree, but there has been some dev funding, either through IF or directly. I think there are lessons to learn from for IF, but the goal was ultimately to fund dev and improve community involvement.
On emissions, this has been underlined a number of times and caused considerable tension between the community and the team. IMO, it even led to team disengagement with this forum for a period.
The community was always ready to bootstrap sufficient nodes to support the network. This should be more evident now than ever, given the current ANT value. Again, hindsight is 20:20, but we (team and community) can still learn from this.
Yeah, I don’t want to do anything to sour relationships. But I would prefer to see emissions doing something seriously beneficial for the Autonomi ecosystem vs something that’s possibly on balance a negative.
One thing emissions have been good for is incentivising node runners to upgrade, so maybe some emissions are needed to be kept for this purpose!
I think IF has done a lot of good so I don’t want to downplay that. I expect that boosting financial assistance to community devs by rearranging emissions would improve the impact IF can have.
Just go to the reddit and check developer forums. We are currently in the worst recession in history for software developers. There is a fraction of jobs offers compared to few years ago. This means, there are tons of them on social networks waiting for job offer and sitting at home. They could work on autonomi in they free time for small rewards while waiting for their new job, which will likely never come because of AI.
We need all of them. In fact, we need juniors more than seniors. We need websites to be build, hard problems were already solved. We need content creators. Even non tech people can create websites using AI and fill in the content. But it is chicken and egg problem. No content = no users. We need to pay content creators first, so users can come later.
I agree, paying empty nodes just caused coin value destruction. Those emissions were too high, money should be in creating value not burning in running empty hardware.
Until the Autonomi protocol is baked into a web browser, the user has to do something extra to get to them. They need to install an app or add a browser plugin or something else to get to stuff. Your average user is very familiar with installing apps (click, click, done) and the experience that brings. Most could do a browser plugin, but now you’re getting out of their comfort zone. Almost no one will attempt a command line application. Plugging in a long XOR string is something very few people will do. They do know how to use a search bar though.
With Colony I’m trying to make an app you just install and run with. You don’t need to do anything out of the ordinary, it follows familiar usage patterns. For downloads, you don’t even need any AUTONOMI/ETH tokens. It opens instantly, no delay waiting for a web app to load. The search index is client side, network syncs only happen when you tell it to. Technically, it all works, and you can install binaries side band. Now its these bureaucratic hurdles to get it into the walled garden ecosystems your average user is familiar with. Unfortunately, the average user must be spoon fed, so to be truly user friendly, you have to do everything for them.
To be fair, @Herodotos created an app with a single click browser launch. Under the hood, it just launches a regular browser, with the proxy set to talk to AntTP (which is launched in the background).
Unfortunately, @Herodotos is privacy concerned and won’t upload the source to github or somewhere, which makes it hard for us to promote. The binary exists to download from an autonomi address though (if you want to trust it) [edit: and source code, so you don’t need to trust it].
I’m sure we could do something better, but we have the basics already.