[Freedombox-discuss] Introductions

[Brian Drake]

Greetings fellow FreedomBoxers,

I'm an entrepreneur and web tech hailing from Austin Texas.  I note the
crazy levels of brain power on this mailing list and can only hope to
contribute marginally to the effort through my mediocre programming skills;
but where I'd like to throw my weight behind is making these
devices accessible to the masses with a turn-key solution.

In that vein; I formed a company to mass market the Guruplugs (and
subsequent similar hardware) with a freedom-box like build of debian.  I
actually started the company before I heard about the Freedom Box but I'd
like for the efforts to be complementary.

My initial focus is to have these devices hosting the Diaspora software.
 I'd like to eventually offer the full suite of stuff you guys are talking
about but I think that for the general user the security inherent in hosting
their own content with Diaspora as the 'permissions management' layer is the
killer app for early adoption.    I just haven't seen home based
servers achieve mass market penetration for any other reason: home based
email, file sharing etc.

I've been pushing for IPv6 to make the dynamic DNS and firewall jumping part
of this system easier but haven't yet found a tunnel provider who's willing
or able to programatically set up hundreds/thousands of tunnels
automatically.  (suggestions/contacts appreciated)

This early iteration of the freedom box won't be in the $25 dollar
range unfortunately, and will still retain a dependency on a centralized
service (they come to my web site to log in; get redirected to their node).
 While I'd love to have us meet these particular goals right off the bat,
I'm planning on moving forward until/as those issues are worked out.  As the
freedom box software stack is realized I'll be wanting to roll it into the
product to make it more independent of my systems.

I don't know if/how I can support this team/project/effort as a corporate
entity.  As I'm a startup with the barest levels of angel funding it's going
to be a couple of months before I've got the revenue to support paid gigs
but I'd be willing to offer some contracts or even employment to folks to
make this happen down the road.  I'm already planning percentage of profit
donations to the cause.

As I'm new to this world and don't want to make a faux pas please let me
know if any part of my efforts are unwelcome.

Brian Drake
Austin Texas
512.850-6326
http://node.net
<http://www.linkedin.com/in/brndrakeecoit>
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