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Comment by MaxBarraclough | Hacker News Reader

> GNUnet is an alternative network stack for building secure, decentralized and privacy-preserving distributed applications. Our goal is to replace the old insecure Internet protocol stack.

Sounds like a PhD thesis run amok.

This just isn't going to happen. Who are they kidding? Even the transition to IPv6 is proving agonisingly slow.

GNU really need to pick their battles more wisely.

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You assume GNU is a top-down organization that selects where to invest its efforts. In reality, individuals do that, only under the auspices of the GNU organization that does provide some benefits.

What _are_ the benefits, other than you get to say you're a GNU project and surrounded by Saint IGNUcius's halo?

Contributing to the GNU Project and having your project associated with certain principles. Some people just want to make GNU stronger or send a message about software freedom.

Choosing file transfer as the first goal seems like a great decesion to me. File sharers are willing to adopt anything.

> Choosing file transfer as the first goal seems like a great decesion to me.

True. We still don't have a good way of doing this[0].

[0] https://xkcd.com/949/

Actually, there is: if both users are on gmail, you can attach big files to your mail, and it's automatically uploaded on Drive (and retrieved seamlessly by recipient from mail). If recipient is not using gmail, you can still use Drive to upload your file and share it. And obviously, there are many Drive competitors, like dropbox and Box, to name the biggest ones.

Unless something has changed each of those still require an existing account on the senders side. With an account on an appropriate service or the right program sending files has been a pretty solved problem for ages. Not sure this really solves super well either since both people would have to download, install and configure GNUnet.

Indeed, it requires auth. The xkcd page nor grandparent were mentioning not requiring auth as a requirement :)

I didn't get this is something GNUnet would allow. I guess it could be a thing... if using GNUnet is easier that registering a drive/dropbox/whatever account.

one to one peer to peer file transfer: justbeamit.com peer to peer file transfer (link doesn't die after one person) file.pizza

but ironically every single OS today ships with a remote desktop functionality. some even on by default.

They might not like that too much based on:

> Bitcoin is unethical as it prevents the state from effectively extracting taxes from economic activity, or from enforcing basic rules on allowed economic activity.

Interesting how privacy in communication is ethical but privacy in economic activity isn't.

It’s the general default of societies I’ve lived in. The idea that money is speech and corporations are people is a very very new and uniquely North American concept.

That said the privacy of users can be protected with crypto-currencies just like it is with cash, without providing a tax-evasion scheme for the wealthy/criminal. GNU Taler is a good example of this design. I wish it well!

While some core projects are pillars of GNU and were created either to provide a fully free Unix replacement or out of one of their initiatives, many are projects offered by individuals.[0] There is no battle.

"Replace" doesn't mean global domination. It means that those who chose to use the replacement can do so, just as those who chose to use the GNU operating system as a replacement can do so.

[0]: https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.en.html

The speed of IPv6 adoption doesn't seem relevant as this doesn't depend on IPv6 and appears to be solving very different problems.

While I disagree with parent comment I think it was meant to draw a comparison between GNUnet and IPv6. As in "we can't get people to adopt IPv6 despite it's being backed by just about every large tech company, how is GNU going to get people to switch to this?".

At least that's how I read it. But as another poster pointed out I don't believe it's GNU's intention to get the whole world to switch, just make it available and if people can and want to use it they will. And then hopefully those people make it easier and easier for others to use it.

> I think it was meant to draw a comparison between GNUnet and IPv6

That's what I'd intended, yes. I wasn't terribly clear.

> I don't believe it's GNU's intention to get the whole world to switch

I hope you're right, but they used 'replace'. Them's fightin' words.

Normally, projects go out of their way to clarify where hostility is not intended. I seem to recall LLVM/Clang being quite explicit about their not intending to kill GCC, for instance. (Annoyingly, I can't find a source for this.)

> but they used 'replace'. Them's fightin' words.

You are welcome to communicate feedback to our (GNUnet) mailinglists. We are in the process of replacing the website (Drupal is good, but doesn't get the job done anymore for us), so if there are problems (even if just interpretation problems or tiny things that throw you off) I invite you to send them to the appropriate mailinglist listed at https://gnunet.org/contact_information

We appreciate any kind of feedback.

I've read into this again. 'Replacing' will be clear from context. This was added very recently (2016?) to the homepage by myself and to the official description.

The Manual (the pushed content as well as my stacks of old fashioned paper corrections) is not mentioning it. For the new website it (the description) either will be described as it is right now (unlikely) or rewritten to be easier to understand.

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