Hi all! After recently discovering MaidSafe, I gotta say, I think this has massive potential! If this succeeds, the impact on society would be huge.
I have a few questions, and I apologize if they’ve been answered a thousand times already (I’ve tried searching). A simple link to the answer would suffice!
From what I understand, every piece of data will have 4 copies somewhere on the network. How was this number determined, and can/will it change in the future? How are files allocated to new Farmers who don’t have a history? If I’m a farmer and a chunk of data is on my HD and I go offline, how long will it take the network to detect this and make another copy from other farmers?
Will live streaming type apps be possible? For example, a video being livestreamed should make its way through very low-latency connections (so satellite connections, for example, should be avoided). Will it be possible for a user to request such live data (whether videos or for games) to go specifically through low latency nodes? Additionally, will the higher demand for a certain video/stream (such as the Superbowl) be instantly detected to increase availability to everyone?
It seems that every application on the network will be app-based, which will be downloaded and will connect to Maidsafe via an API, rather than “browser” based. What languages will be used to support the applications, and where can I go to learn the basics of building applications for MaidSafe? I’m coming from a PHP background (which will likely not be compatible with Maidsafe), so would love some pointers on what I would need to learn to contribute.
I ran across the project OpenLibernet in an article, and the last thing I read was that MaidSafe was in talks with integration with them. Are there any updates on this? It seems like a waste so split up work between two projects with essentially the same goals.
If I’m on a slow internet connection via satellite that limits by bandwidth to 10GB per month, I’ll want to restrict any apps and the network from using too much bandwidth (perhaps a couple gigs a month). Will this be possible?
A couple articles mentioned a 1% fee that goes to MaidSafe for all non-open source apps on the network. Is this still the case? If so, this worries me, as in doing so MaidSafe (the company/organization) is taking ownership over the entire network. I’m not sure if that’s your intention, but it is worrisome as it contradicts the “open” aspect. How will the 1% fee be enforced? Is it really necessary? If the project does, in fact, become successful, then I’d warrant that there would be more than enough interest to keep MaidSafe well funded voluntarily. I can also see this as causing conflicts and forks (and perhaps that’s where the “defensive” patents would come in?).
I’m not bashing anyone here, I would just like to see this succeed
That’s a lot of questions so I’ll take one and others can jump in to…
(3) It seems that every application on the network will be app-based, which will be downloaded and will connect to Maidsafe via an API, rather than “browser” based. What languages will be used to support the applications, and where can I go to learn the basics of building applications for MaidSafe? I’m coming from a PHP background (which will likely not be compatible with Maidsafe), so would love some pointers on what I would need to learn to contribute.
This is not the case, both web apps and downloadable apps are supported.
Wrappers will allow access via all the usual languages to the C++ API calls, so if you’d like to help maybe look at creating some PHP wrappers. That would be fantastic!
For static websites, a plugin will bridge the gap between existing browsers and public shares containing static HTML.
For dynamic websites, I’m not clear on exactly how this will work because it’s not been invented yet, but they are coming you can be sure of that. There’s even some code on Github for a decentralized blogging system that I’m sure we could adapt.
I’m not sure where the number 4 came from, however I can say everything I’ve seen so far has been backed up by math. The team is not a fan of “magic numbers” so while I can’t prove it, I sure there is a reason.
There is a ranking system for farmers. The longer and more reliably you farm, the higher your rank. The plan last I read was to fan out the chunks to cover all farmer ranks.
Reallocation of chunks should be extremely fast. As soon as your computer becomes unresponsive to the nodes close to you (those you are directly connected to) (this is very high level, someone can explain the process itself better) a list of all the chunks you have is sent out that they need to be replicated again. I’d imagine all of this taking less than a second to initiate after seeing you go down then transfer time.
Very interesting. How would it be possible to use something like PHP? On the existing internet, everyone connecting to a server built with PHP relies on the server having it installed (and MySQL) and serving them the content (“server-side” language). With MaidSafe, are you saying that you would expect all the “chunks” or each node to also have PHP installed, and other similar languages (like Ruby)? The alternative is to have the clients have PHP installed and serve them the application files.
Can you please elaborate on how this would work? Who will have these languages installed?
Thanks for the overview, Wes! If it’s really fast like you say, then maybe 4 chunks would even be sufficient. We’d have to hope that the majority of nodes aren’t all being hosted on AWS or something I doubt that will be a problem though.
I think what he’s saying is you can write apps in any language you choose. If you were dead set on writing in php, you’d have to bundle. So, php5 comes with a small webserver built in. So if you bundled your php5 app with maidsafe you could backend your php to maidsafe api for content and front end via built in webserver. It would be a huge app with all that bundled, but perfectly doable.
Initially the will be browser extensions, later maybe, and then OS for almost total security (booting off SAFE).
Any language you like, but obv this has to be supported. I’m not saying this will be there from day one - it all depends on someone creating this, and that’s our job, not all down to MaidSafe.
I changed the category of this topic to FAQ. It seems more fitting this way. Hope nobody minds. New members to the forum may have similar questions and find this topic very helpful.
While I’m waiting on the answers to the other questions and doing more research on my own (everything looks amazing so far), I’d like to offer my help for the project. I’m an experienced PHP and MySQL developer, so whether I contribute something to the network itself or to a regular site used for marketing MaidSafe or the management of it, I’ll be more than happy to help.
Just going to reference @dirvine and @nicklambert here so that they’re aware. Please message me if you think I can help!
Thanks for the offer @eblanshey, as you are probably aware our marketing site is maidsafe.net. Please keep in touch with us and if you have any thoughts or suggestions just let me know. I hope you enjoy learning about the network!
