[wsfii-discuss] funding supernodes

Wed Oct 24 21:59:53 UTC 2007

Hi all,

just seen this on the okfn list http://cofundos.org

It's a system for developing open source projects by pledging funds
and also providing a framework for negotiating the project spec etc.

It reminded me a bit of the system that guifi are using on their home
page http://guifi.net for raising money for supernodes and might be a
good model for funding bits of network that are a) expensive and b)
shared.

In guifi there is a donation/pledge system where a budget for a
project is set and those who rely on it pledge funds to pay for the
node install or upgrade. When the budget is reached the work gets
done. This is being used for boosting performance of 'super nodes'
maintenance and provisioning of long links.

Why is this necessary in a freenetwork?

In freenetworks the idea is that an infrastructure can be
peer-produced in the local or metropolitan area. This possibility is
based on some sort of equality of investment in terms of hardware and
maintenance - the network is made of roughly equivalent peers.

In a mesh like freifunk, everyone pays roughly the same ammount for
hardware ~ 100 Euros, and does maintenance themselves or as a group.
The scale of each investment and commitment is within what individuals
and small groups can manage and afford.

The relativley similar physical environment of the city means that
most people don't need links that are very different from each
other. In this way peoples contributions to the network are more or
less the same from an economic/time standpoint.

In a rural setting like guifi or djurslandsnet, links vary more, some
are longer and some are shorter, and thus the cost of some nodes is
greater than others. Also some nodes have better geographical
locations than others, for instance being on top of hills with line of
sight to a number of villages.

One of the themes that emerged at guifi was this distinction between
super nodes and normal nodes that showed up in the open hardware
discussions. In practice there are therefore some nodes or links which
must carry more traffic, be higher specced, and thus cost more to
deploy.

Maybe something like this could be the beginnings of a system for
loose freenetwork communities to fund the longer links between
freenetwork islands?

cheers

/julian