Partnership with Universities

Development
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There was new back in Oct 2016 - Glasgow University to Build dApps With Maidsafe as Part of New Course.

What happened to that initiative?

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We did do some work there, but timelines were starting to be affected so we have currently backed out a wee bit. After Alpha 4 we can resume that with more time and professionalism. We donā€™t really want to have just a marketing effort there, but actually, bring students onto SAFE for a long term.

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Sounds good David. Just my side opinion (not worth anything but Iā€™ll still say it) - I think we need to add a couple more developers like Pierre to the team to help with effort on this project. And on the routing. It will also help in marketing. Some investment from a VC would not hurt especially if its a name brand VC - it will help in publicity too and will help get some more eyes on the project. Partnership with SOLID is great. Also, for demos, lets control the pace based on when we have something 100% workable to demonstrate. That will instigate community interest. Jumping ahead may lead to dissatisfaction amongst potential contributors who are looking to participate.

Easy usability will be key to this project.
Being non-technical, below is how I think this would evolve -

  1. Routing layer, storage layer will be key. This should be made accessible and easy to use for any large enterprise. And even on current web - launch a separate website or something to make storage work like drop box. The underlying layer could be SAFEnetwork but atleast to current users of the web, it will be easy to use. Many most go through the trouble of downloading SAFE browser etc. If they do well enough but atleast storage alone (decentralized) should be able to work on safenet just like it does today for Box.com or dropbox etc. For Enterprise, SAFENET should make it equally easy for Enterprises to look at SAFENET rather than IPFS.

  2. The decentralized web portion of it, can include the whole game - users could download SAFE browser, use added/more integrated decentralized storage, SAFE sites, Apps etc. This is a more longer term goal and will grow.

If it is all integrated and what I mentioned above is non-sense then pls ignore it. I am non-technical so just giving my off the street opinion. In that case, what I would say is that make usability easy enough and comparable to other competing projects like zeronet etc. and provide a 'easy way for Enterprises to store data in a easy, secure way.

  1. Keep integration with SOLID project growing.

  2. Implement SAFE network in a way that it can cross function with other blockchains - Bitcoin in particular. Perhaps cross functional transactional capability as well.

Thanks.

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Also one comment that I read on the board which I liked. So copying/pasting the same.
There was also a nice demo by PeerGOS.org 5 which uses IPFS to provide a secure anonymous storage system with fine grained, hierarchical access control and file sharing. Very nice, and a serverless login scheme similar to SAFE.
I think it would be great if SAFE could match this functionality if at all possible - is that feasible @dirvine?

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This is what SAFE will do and has always stated it will do, so should be no problem. We are focussed on security from the very first message though and anonymising from the first network hop, but encrypting all messages. Itā€™s the hard path, but I do not think we can retrofit security and speaking with other projects it seems like 100% encryption, anonymisation and in particular, NAT traversal to work on all computing devices are not on the priority list as it is for us.

Ofc that all means we need sharding, group consensus (secure message relay) and also a PARSEC ABFT for intra section consensus is all required. When that is behind us we can then re-iterate the goals, but show them. i.e.

  • Walk up to any computer
  • Login or create an account
  • It becomes your computer
  • Logout with no trace

Repeat wherever you go.

However when logged in

  • Nobody can see what you are doing, whether browsing or adding/editing information
  • Nobody can track you
  • Nobody can stop you
  • Nobody can prevent anyone from accessing the system or their data at any time.

So not only the Internet as it should have been, but also computing as it should have been.

I realised after our 4 person presentation (never again as it mixes the message) that we had not told the audience this vision. We will press the message at every opportunity and let folk ask deep tech questions of us and how we can achieve this, which we can easily answer quickly and in detail.

the tl;dr will be SAFE is not a decentralised XXX it is a decentrlaised everything. :smiley:

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I like that. I agree that the message was not clear in the presentation that is what concerned me. I think we should aim at some press releases based on what you just described above - with a clear vision as you stated above. Perhaps wait a bit to do that. Add it to the next release we make. That way, the audience looks at the release and reads the vision too.
Thanks for responding. I am a long term holder but just dont want such good work to go unnoticed.

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Just to come back on a couple of points you mentioned:

We have open positions for another couple of Rust developers. The good ones are a little like hens teeth which can slow the recruitment process down a little. We continue to push this as hard as we can though and are working with some partners to speed things up.

Not sure about this part. VCā€™s, and I suspect particularly brand name VCs, are very good at prioritising themselves over the company/technology and tend to like to screw over early investors (the ones we should look after the most) by trying to force the issuance of preference shares, which will favour them (greater control/returns) over the seed/earlier investors. If we needed cash and had no other options then we would need to look at this, but fortunately weā€™re not in that position at the moment.

Thanks for the points/input.

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Well Iā€™m glad you did it the way you did because itā€™s been one big bullshit sales pitch by one company after another promising privacy and security for a monthly fee. All the money in the world wonā€™t stop hackers or security breaches.

You did just fine @dirvine and team and Iā€™m disappointed you have that comment. You are not a polished public speaker. Thatā€™s good news for all those who dislike charmers with empty promises.

Back to work. Prove to those in SF it wasnā€™t about what you didnā€™t deliver. Itā€™s about what they failed to see.

GL

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Iā€™m with @bigbtc I thought it was a great presentation. Perhaps better to lead off with the ā€˜vision thingā€™ rather than leaving it to the end - I did feel the need for some more context in the first 5 mins. The 4 presenter format worked too, I thought, it kept it fresh and varied and didnā€™t feel it diluted the message at all.

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Iā€™m with @bigbtc and @JPL: I found the 4-way presentation like a 4-layered sandwich of awesomeness :smiley: I thought you guys did a great job at explaining the vision in a way that was accessible to an audience unfamiliar with the SAFE Network while still covering some serious ground by tackling it from 4 different angles. Real rockstars :sunglasses:

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Nick - as to your point on VCs - I overall agree but sometimes your existing ā€˜early investorsā€™ may actually be willing to bring in more investors. The early investors obviously also get a chance to participate in the new round at a discounted rate that other new investors. You may not want to go to a big VC but there is plenty of money available these days - and a lot may even be willing to work on your terms. (as long as they like what you are doing & the potential). Even if you are not looking right now, may be a good idea to maintain a short list of potential ones that have shown ā€˜an indiciation of interestā€™ assuming you dont have that list already. That way, when the time comes, it is a quicker process. Just my 2 centsā€¦

That said - next few months will be critical. Even though Maidsafe has come really far, there are a lot of new projects coming in mkt with 200mln/300mln in funding - blockstack, blockstream, telegram (also working on a deccentralized storage) - I know Maidsafe is unique and trying to do something very different but sometimes it is not the best product but which company gets most adoption first. So Maidsafe team really has to roll up their sleeves and try to do the most in next following months. If possible, lets try to get Alpha 4 out by the end of the year.

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That was the vision that caught my attention when you mentioned it on the GoogleTechTalks in 2008 (link)

At that point, to imagine the concept of a dumb terminal model reinvented in a fully decentralized autonomous network was what blew my mind.

Paraphrasing: ā€œWhy isnā€™t a computer like any other appliance or commodity? Why do we have to worry so much when it breaks down? Why canā€™t we just throw it away, buy another and keep working?ā€

I totally agree that in the talks you should push this vision first to get them hooked, and then go into the details.

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yahoo was before google and myspace was before facebook. Quality over speed. Letā€™s not get hung up on timelines and money thatā€™s not needed at this time.

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True, a bit behind may be ok but it is generally tougher. Also, companies that are too late, its impossible for them. Googleā€™s social network failed to get any adoption because Facebook had already taken that. Google docs were too late after Microsoft office so it failed. There are numerous examples.

I think we are both well wishers for this network. The point I am trying to make is that from 2008-2018, the pace was fine because Maidsafe was getting built in background and there were not too many companies around working in similar space. There may still not be many/any, but there are several well funded projects to the tune of 300/400 mln that have armies of developers working to release unique solutions. Therefore, Maid safe has to speed up too - a bit more than before. It is a competitive game now. Cant wait another 3 years. It will be game over. We probably need Alpha 4 by end of the year and a owrking beta product by mid/late next year. Just my opinion. I am not suggesting compromise quality but thats where timelines should be targeted and resources deployed accordingly.

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or may be Alpha 4 by early next year and beta by late-end of next year.

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and then marketing, corporate tie ups, university tie ups, user engagements and growth will pick up from there. Product is only half the battle won. Then comes user acceptance and penetration - which will happen but will need to be guided with some planning too.

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We do keep in contact with a couple.

Yep, thanks for that.

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Something I havenā€™t considered before:
With these other projects that are popping out as storage tokens (Storj, Sia, Filecoin) the storage ā€œreal estateā€ might end up under fierce competition.

Even though these other projects are inferior in scope and technology, they will be taking the storage space of users that otherwise would have ended up as SafeNetwork vaults.

What will end up defining the growth of the network is the amount of vaults being deployed, and the one taking over that ā€œstorage real estateā€ will be the one that is more profitable for the farmer, regardless of how sophisticated the technology is/isnā€™t.

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Storj is junk. First of all it is Ethereum based and will fall off, I think. Filecoin is IPFS - it will come to defining advantages between IPFS and SAFENET. That is a technology debate. I am not too worried about that. I am however worried about Telegram that just raised 800 mm to develop a decentralized storage solution and likes of others. I think Nick and David understand that we cannot compromise quality to do this quick but at the same time this has to be put on 4th gear now. We are all part of the same team : )

Key will also be corporate awareness and partnerships. I know the primary goodwill of this project is to create something for the everyday user but whether we like it or not, the growth and money will come only from corporates. It serves the initial investors well too. More importantly, if corporate data or govt data gets hacked, its the normal man that suffers so that aligns the goodwill of this project to better corporate solutions as well. I have a feeling that if the product does as envisioned, we could have big companies like Microsoft, googles of the world setting up large farms to earn Safecoin and to store data on SAFENET.

There will be failures along the way but the key is to stay determined till the end : ) Do not give up.

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You need to win the trust of companies and corporations more than retail users and if the product coming out of these projects is only marginally better with a new technology they people do not understand they will just stay with what they already have. I think if we take a look at an overall market picture and consider bitcoin adoption and growing pains has had it is having to really break through,the idea of being behind some of these other projects I think makes more sense because it doesnā€™t rely on blockchain technology. People arenā€™t looking for just a storage solution but a ā€œsuiteā€ if you will of integrated items that takes care of everything, thats why people love google. Thatā€™s why people fell in love with Microsoft products and outlook.

The fact that some of these companies have had big funding rounds and are cash strong right now I guess can be a concern but there are plenty of tales of heavy burn rate with little to show or have to go back for round c, d, e ect. Just looks at Tesla. Quarterly reports are good when they lose less money than expected. How sick is that? No this canā€™t take 5 years but it appears things are coming along quick enough that we can afford 2 years if we must.