Valent, This is a great project and you have achieved so much already. You mentioned that your project is open source, I am wondering if there is a public codebase. You mentioned that you used VPN, which one? Is there any form of de-centralised system ? And why having only 450 users par MeshPoint. Is it possible to see the specs of your hardward? I would like to learn, and if you won't mine. Regards Janus On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 11:03 AM, Valent Turkovic wrote: > Hi, > > On Sun, Apr 29, 2018 at 11:47 PM, Juliusz Chroboczek wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I've just spent four days in Osijek, a small city in the East of Croatia, > > invited by Valent Turković (in copy of this mail). It was an interesting > > stay. > > Juliusz, it was a blast having you here! I really enjoyed meeting you > and discussions we had were very, very interesting. > You are welcome back to visit anytime, your friends are also welcome, > and your friends of friends are also welcome :) > > > For those of you who are not up to scratch in European Geography, the > part > > of Croatia that everyone knows about is the west, on the Adriatic gulfn. > > But Croatia also has an inland part, in the east, which is flat and > > agricultural. The region is known as Slavonia (no relation to either > > Slovenia or Slovakia), and the main city is Osijek (pronounced "Osiek"); > > the other well-known town there is Vukovar. > > > > Valent is the founder (co-founder?) of three projects: > > > > 1. Osijek Wireless, a non-profit that puts open access points all over > the > > place, both in fixed locations and to support events; > > 2. Otvorena Mreža (Open Network), an informal project that develops > > a number of technologies including a free hardware outdoor router > > running Babel, known as MeshPoint; Otvorena Mreža notably provided > > Internet access to a Syrian refugee camp in Beli Monastir back in > 2015; > > 3. Crisis Innovation Lab, a limited responsibility company (for profit) > > that aims to market an outdoor router for crisis situations. > > > > The Otvorena Mreža technology stack uses a number of familiar open-source > > technologies, notably Babel for meshing the routers when the need arises. > > Thank you for this overview. Otvorena mreža and Wlan Slovenia have > been working together for over 7 years, and we have made great > progress together. You can check out our live node map here [1]. We > are now in the process of setting up our own nodewatcher server that > will run on https://nodes.otvorenamreza.org, and we already have a > separate vpn gateway for our part of the network. > Idea is to have duplicate and redundant systems so if any part of Wlan > Slovenia network has some issues they can fall back to using our > infrastructure, and vice-versa. > > > Valent is unfortunately not the best at communicating about his > > activities, and the only website I could find in English is about the > > MeshPoint crisis router. It runs Babel ;-) > > > > https://meshpoint.me/ > > > > -- Juliusz > > Yes, this is so true. I didn't understand the importance of > communicating vision and mission up until few months ago... I always > thought that you really use terms like "vision" and "mission" when you > wan't to sound smart or when you want to take money from someone :) > > I wrongly thought that "real engineers" don't need to communicate > their vision, they just have an idea and go work on it. But without a > way to communicate your idea to others you are then left alone to work > on your idea and if idea is actually big and important enough there is > actually very small chance that you can do it on your own. > > Best place we have documented our work so far is on Hackaday prize > competition blogs [2] from last year's competition. But we have gone > quite far from that since then. > > There a number of projects (big and small) and corporations (mostly > huge ones) that are trying to address the issue of digital divide and > how to connect next 5 billion people to the Internet. If you have been > keeping an eye on what and how they are doing it you have seen them > failing much more than getting something even off the ground, let > alone making it successful. > > I was asking my self this; if even the biggest corporations, with > almost unlimited resources, with probably some of smartest people on > the planet, best scientists and awesome engineers then is it possible > that a small group of open source geeks, volunteers with almost no > budget can "compete" with them? > > My answer is yes. Not only can we "compete" but we can show them how > this can actually be done. I see two mayor flaws in approaches so far. > > 1. What most big corporations say they do and what they are actually > doing is usually not the same. Yes, they wan't to connect next 5 > billion people, but all of them want to build some kind of wallgarden > and not to connect people in the most general way possible. This goes > agings internet being more open, and it is closing it down, making it > almost a privately owned network (with corporations as gatekeepers) > instead of a great public good. > > 2. All commercial backed entities want to build an infrastructure what > will be used by next 5 billion people. They see anyone connecting to > the network not as a valuable contributor but only as a user. Also > building infrastructure doesn't scale, or at least it scales very, > very poorly - especially in developing countries. > > I have seen examples and I know there is a better way to do it. It is > definitely not to build an infrastructure, because we would need > billions and billions of euros/dollars... > > What we need to build are tools that will enable next 5 billion people > to connect themselves. > > Building tools isn't as sexy or glamorous as building something like > infrastructure that you can show of to others, but it is definitely > only was I see we can connect whole world. But also building only > tools is not enough. > > So the full answer is we need to do both. > > We need to build tools and we need to build infrastructure. But the > main difference is in out approach. We don't build infrastructure with > top to down approach because that doesn't scale, but we build > infrastructure from bottom up. This is only way we can scale things > and actually connect next 5 billion people. > > But building infrastructure and tools is also not enough. We also need > to build our own open source and open hardware wifi routers. > > We can't use off the shelf devices because most of them are getting > more and more closed, they are also change too often so you can't plan > anything with them. Most consumer devices change every few months, so > as soon as they are released they aren't supported in OpenWrt, and few > months later when you get support for them they are already replaced > by a different model or revision. > > As much as doing all of this seams crazy, this is exactly what my team > and I have been doing for last 3 years. And I believe in this so much > that I have also stared a social entrepreneurship company. > > Reason for starting a company was motivated by earning a profit, but > to show that I'm 100% serious and dedicated to this idea. I have put > my money where my mouth is, so all of our (my wife and mine) money is > used to make this happen. We believe we have a good business plan and > I'm sure we will be self-sustainable and be able to support this idea > from profits that we gather., but for now is company if far from being > profitable. Juliusz can tell you that we drive over 25 year old car :) > But all our team members get payed for their contributions, to be > precise, all except my wife Mili and me. > > We are trying to get some EU funding and collect some grants, but I'm > very careful about that. Because most important to us is to have a > self-sustainable business model which would mean that we would stay > independent. Also if we would focus only on getting "free money" from > grants then we would have would to find new source of income once we > deplete current one... > > Getting "free money" could become a honey trap, because some people > and projects that go this route fail after few years. They become very > good at getting free money that they just like it much more (or > overhead is too much) than doing real work, so projects actually stop > doing any real work. We are very conscious of this. So we are only > asking for enough money to help us accelerate our development (hire > few full time people) but we will never ask for so much money that we > feel "safe". I have learned that in order to produce good results you > have to have correct incentives setup. > > And we have seen also how many open source and open hardware projects > fail because enthusiasm wears our after a few years, also life happens > - people get married, get children, and of course then priorities > change. You have to provide for your family and first that goes out of > the picture are hobbies and open source projects that you work on. > > This is why I started a company, to have enough money to pay for > developers to work on open source projects so that they can bring food > to their families. > > This is far too long email, but please let's continue this discussion. > > Cheers, > Valent. > > [1] https://nodes.wlan-si.net/map/ > [2] https://hackaday.io/project/10453-meshpoint-wifi-router- > for-humanitarian-crisis > > _______________________________________________ > Babel-users mailing list > Babel-users@alioth-lists.debian.net > https://alioth-lists.debian.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/babel-users > -- P.S Please join our groups*: *nigeriaarduinogroup@googlegroups.com * or *jifunze-kufikiria@googlegroups.com These are platforms for learning and sharing of knowledge. www.satajanus.com | *Satajanus Nig. Ltd*