MaidSafe Dev Update - March 8, 2018

[jdabcarr]

I love hearing all the great work you all are doing! Congratulations @Shane for the app of the month award! Keep up the good work

If you haven’t already scurried over and read/clapped the Medium article, please take a few moments to do so. It will help other curious people find out about SAFE.

[tobbetj]

Go, team!!!

[Cryptoskeptic]

Anyone know where the team is up to with Milestone 1 for Alpha 3. There were 4 steps listed in the Jan 25 update for Milestone 1. Being a non technical person I have no idea where current progress is up to. There must be others like me out there.

[hamelbus]

This is link to Jira tasks with status for milestone 1: https://maidsafe.atlassian.net/issues/?jql=labels+%3D+dc-1. Just not so sure how up to date it is.

[Mindphreaker]

I may be wrong but last time I checked the count of finished tasks hasn’t changed for 2-3 weeks. I’m pretty sure that quite some work regarding these tasks has been going on behind the scene but maybe not enough to tick off items from the list.

However, would be cool if there would be a section in the weekly update regarding the progress with reference to the DC tickets.

[happybeing]

I looked last Thursday and saw three in progress tasks had completed, but no new tasks started. Haven’t looked since.

[Josh]

I have not seen any change in the DC-1 task board but I think this is why.

@maidsafe

Routing & Crust
We are currently focused on implementing a push-pull gossip protocol as described in Randomized Rumor Spreading - Karp et al. [FOCS 2000], and carrying out evaluation work on that to compare to other such gossip methods and their results. All work on this would be going into the safe_gossip repo branches while still in the comparison stages. We have also been working in the background on improving the asynchronicity of our consensus ordering algorithm for data chains. For completeness, we feel this is a very worthwhile approach and certainly could buy us some much-needed components that would reduce our codebase (dealing with eventual consistency globally), ease testnets and thereby get us to beta stages much faster. With Crust, Core and front-end moving so quickly, this is a perfect opportunity for the Routing team to hopefully take this opportunity for a very important win,

[Viv]

This is very much is the reason for the existing dc-1 tasks from JIRA not moving along right now. As it stands this change with gossip integration and also

@Josh

We have also been working in the background on improving the asynchronicity of our consensus ordering algorithm for data chains.

part specifically could have some changes for the spec’d milestones as it could lead to them becoming a lot simpler(but of course getting it in place itself is going to require time too), so coding this as is now might only lead to them needing to get changed/updated and deal with eventual consistency issues via testnets/mock tests on a per issue basis rather than fix it at source with such a solution. Don’t really have much more info that is concrete in terms of how we’re planning to address it yet but we will do so as soon as we get a feasible solution in place from the work that is going on right now.

[Josh]

@maidsafe

Update on App of the Month

As some of you will be aware, the community has chosen SAFE-CMS as the App of the Month. We’ve already carried out an interview with @Shane and we’ll be starting to publicise his great work with @AndyAlban immediately after the much anticipated release of v1.0.0 of SAFE-CMS this Sunday (11th March)

Nobody is owed an explanation as to what happened here but it would be very nice to know.
Bermuda triangle, Area 51 and now we have SAFE-CMS

[fractalbyte]

As I have said on Medium, I am concerned about the partnership with Intellidect. I appreciate that MaidSAFE needs funding so that there can be a core team employed full-time, and for hosting the website. However, MaidSAFE should be an open platform and not resort to becoming commercialized.

Having resources (e.g. servers), code or information (e.g intellectual property) hidden from public examination for commercial purposes would harm the security and trustworthiness of the code and takes away access from those who cannot afford it. Isn’t the SAFE network about safety not profit?

[piluso]

@fractalbyte

takes away access from those who cannot afford it

Who says that it takes away access or becomes unaffordable in any way?
Having enterprises using it it doesn’t mean that it will be a special one, isolated from the rest (like NEM’s mijin).
The whole SafeNetwork, it is one and the same, and it can be use both for companies and common users.
Actually, it is a no-brainer for companies if they realize that it dramatically lowers their hosting costs for an almost unhackable infrastructure.

Btw, to have a revenue doesn’t mean that it is for profit, you misunderstand what non-profit means.
Btw, MaidSafe as a company will make apps for profit, but in the SafeNetwork you don’t have to compromise security and privacy to have a profitable model, that is the whole point of the SafeNetwork: you won’t need advertising for revenue in the new internet.

[Traktion]

@fractalbyte

However, MaidSAFE should be an open platform and not resort to becoming commercialized.

Redhat do similar things, while also maintaining Fedora for free.

Producers of open source software need to have sustainable funding if they are to continue to contribute full time on it.

Finally, the SAFENetwork will always remain free. It is licensed via GPL 3. Maidsafe can choose to grant other private licenses for parts of the technology to third parties, but this will not prevent SAFENetwork from being developed; quite the opposite, as new tech will find its way into the GPL version.

[happybeing]

Are you confusing the platform (SAFEnetwork) with the company which has made it possible?

If Maidsafe was not a profitable commercial enterprise, there would probably be no SAFEnetwork, and no one to get it through launch to a point where it can be self sustaining.

[piluso]

Actually, there is Maidsafe Foundation (http://www.maidsafefoundation.org) and Maidsafe Ltd.
The latter would focus only on making apps for the SafeNetwork once it is released, eventually delegating the maintenance of the SafeNetwork to Safe Pods.

[fractalbyte]

Thanks to piluso, Traktion and happybeing for your replies!

piluso I am not a very technical guy and from the update it seemed to me that Identillect or other enterprises would be able to run their own separate instance of the network or build their own proprietary technology on it. These updates are understandably aimed at a more techical audience - I am just an interested netizen so perhaps a bit too deep for my needs!

Traktion, I like your example of Redhat and Fedora. A good point as well about GPL, I understand that should protect from companies building their own proprietary products which might outcompete SAFE as any modifications would also have to be made open.

happybeing, agreed SAFEnet does need to be sustainable, and there is nothing wrong with collaborating sensibly with companies which work for profit. I doubt a dogmatic communist approach will be very likely to succeed.