[Freedombox-discuss] http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/07/18/0153204/Security-Consultants-Wa rn-About-PROTECT-IP-Act

[Henri Asseily]

I wholeheartedly agree with Ted's below comments.
While tackling the issue of proper secure distributed name mapping is a grand idea, I find it completely outside the scope of the FreedomBox version 1. FB v1 should start as early as possible with a simple bootstrap that's got a minimal secure software framework with the proper configuration to launch a few (say secure email and chat) services that validate the concept.
After that, focus should be on adding services.
To me, the real work on the FB is in the configuration framework, cross-service API connectivity, and overall usability of the box for Joe Beerbelly.
--
Henri Asseily
henri.tel




On Jul 18, 2011, at 11:30 PM, Ted Smith wrote:

> I think that the mistake being made most on this mailing list is the
> tendency to devise solutions to complicated problems. Sadly, this is
> just not a thing that can be done on a mailing list. If the FreedomBox
> project exists to integrate existing software, devising solutions to
> complicated problems is wholly outside the scope of the FreedomBox. I
> wonder why such discussion is encouraged on this list when there are so
> many better places to go for it. 
> 
> I also wonder why the low-hanging fruit of packaging and integrating
> autonomy-enhancing technology (AET) has not been more aggressively
> worked on. As Eben said, there is enough technology in existence RIGHT
> NOW to build a FreedomBox v0, that just does self-hosted IM, email, and
> blogging. Debian packages exist to implement all of those things. Why
> does such a FreedomBox not exist yet? Why are people more attracted to
> debating pet solutions to very hard problems that will not be solved on
> a mailing list than to advancing the agenda of the FreedomBox by
> creating stable configurations for existing software to actually
> implement a FreedomBox?
> 
> I don't know if I haven't looked hard enough, but the only thing I
> remember seeing from the FBF was a list of things the FreedomBox is/is
> not. I don't remember seeing a set of tasks made to package Debian
> software to do all the things the FBF want the FB to do, or a list of
> Debian packages that already exist but need better default configuration
> files, or actually, anything being done. I can put an equal part of the
> blame for this on myself, since I haven't done anything towards these
> goals, but it's distressing that in such a high-profile and obviously
> popular project, nobody seems to have taken the low-hanging fruit.