[qcl820DV34]

Notably this project was conceived by a backroom decision to dump the original Freenet development team's work,

in favor of a rewrite from different developers, without asking anyone on the original team.

It was an ivory tower decision which was announced on the mailing list without prior discussion.

The old team did not agree, yet it was forced through by a decision of the "board".

The "board" was a group of people which had not been active on the project for over a decade.

https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg5526...

The funding of the existing, original "Freenet" was repurposed for the new one of course.

The new "Freenet" does not have anonymity as a design goal anymore,

while the old one continues to exist and is maintained under its new name "Hyphanet" at:

https://www.hyphanet.org/

[pikdum]

Yeah, I'm not a fan. Feels like this project is trying to get popular off of Freenet's name recognition rather than its own merits.

[koolba]

The submitter is the creator of the original Freenet. If anybody gets to decide what we will call Freenet, it’s him.

[pikdum]

I'd agree if this was more like a Freenet v3, but it's an entirely different project with completely different goals.

[Alex_toani]

So what's the different between Hyphanet and Freenet? Only some anonymity？ I have try the River chat. I'm not sure how to find a people chat in here. It's hard.

[sanity]

How are the goals different?

[nextgens]

I've abstained form interfering until now... but have you honestly forgotten?

Please explain how "the new freenet" tackles censorship resistance.

https://web.archive.org/web/20001017133926/http://freenetpro... "Freenet is a peer-to-peer network designed to allow the distribution of information over the Internet in an efficient manner, without fear of censorship."

https://web.archive.org/web/20050201110519/http://freenetpro... "Freenet is free software which lets you publish and obtain information on the Internet without fear of censorship."

https://web.archive.org/web/20150206152355/https://freenetpr... "Share files, chat on forums, browse and publish, anonymously and without fear of blocking or censorship!"

today: "Hyphanet is peer-to-peer network for censorship-resistant and privacy-respecting publishing and communication."

the new freenet: ?!?

[SiempreViernes]

Are there any success stories about Hyphanet's censorship resistance mattering? Beyond serving run-of-the mill copyrigh violations (and probably child porn) I never heard anything about the content on Hyphanet.

Even now when people in the US are organising against a fascist regime it's mostly WhatsApp and maybe Signal.

[sanity]

> Please explain how "the new freenet" tackles censorship resistance.

Primarily through the same core mechanism as the original Freenet design: decentralization and relaying requests through multiple peers such that no individual peer sees the entire request path.

The new design also supports pluggable anonymity systems such as mixnets and onion routing. In some respects these are stronger than Hyphanet's approach because relay selection can be chosen intentionally by the user's node rather than emerging implicitly from network topology.

The main architectural change is that anonymity is no longer treated as a single mandatory mechanism baked into every layer of the system. Different applications can make different tradeoffs depending on their requirements.

[cess11]

"Anonymity: While the previous version was designed with a focus on anonymity, the current version does not offer built-in anonymity but allows for a choice of anonymizing systems to be layered on top."

https://freenet.org/about/faq/

[sanity]

How is offering the user more choice with respect to anonymity changing the goals of the project?

[DANmode]

That’s not how contributing money to the success of a specific thing should be able to work at all.

[GJim]

> If anybody gets to decide what we will call Freenet, it’s him.

Perhaps.

Though reusing the name for an entirely different project with a different codebase is disingenuous to say the least.

That won't do his reputation any good, especially in a field where reputation matters.

[sanity]

> Though reusing the name for an entirely different project with a different codebase is disingenuous to say the least.

Same project, same goals, and it's not even the first time we started with a fresh codebase - we did it in 2008.

> That won't do his reputation any good, especially in a field where reputation matters.

This drama never comes up anywhere except HN where it seems to be the obsession of a small number of vocal people who never have anything to say about the substance of the project. I don't lose any sleep over it.

[GJim]

> Same project, same goals

Many on here beg to differ.

[sanity]

And yet I still haven't seen anyone explain how the goals actually differ.

Interestingly, there seems to be very little overlap between the people giving substantive technical feedback and the people most upset about a 3-year-old naming controversy.

[cheesecompiler]

Does he though?

[serf]

they most def have a choice as to what to broadcast about..

[sanity]

> Notably this project was conceived by a backroom decision to dump the original Freenet development team's work,

This is a false narrative, from the Freenet FAQ[1]:

Why was Freenet rearchitected and rebranded?

In 2019, Ian began developing a successor to the original Freenet, internally named “Locutus.” This redesign was a ground-up reimagining, incorporating lessons learned from the original Freenet and addressing modern challenges. The original Freenet, although groundbreaking, was built for an earlier era.

This isn’t the first time Freenet has undergone significant changes. Around 2005, we transitioned from version 0.5 to 0.7, which was a complete rewrite introducing “friend-to-friend” networking.

In March 2023, the original Freenet (developed from 2005 onwards) was spun off into an independent project called “Hyphanet” under its existing maintainers. Concurrently, “Locutus” was rebranded as “Freenet,” also known as “Freenet 2023,” to signal this new direction and focus. The rearchitected Freenet is faster, more flexible, and better equipped to offer a robust, decentralized alternative to the increasingly centralized web.

To ease the transition the old freenetproject.org domain was redirected to hyphanet’s website, while the recently acquired freenet.org domain was used for the new architecture.

It is important to note that the maintainers of the original Freenet did not agree with the decision to rearchitect and rebrand. However, as the architect of the Freenet Project, and after over a year of debate, Ian felt this was the necessary path forward to ensure the project’s continued relevance and success in a world far different than when he designed the previous architecture.

> The new "Freenet" does not have anonymity as a design goal anymore,

Because the new Freenet will have a menu of anonymity options rather than committing to a one-size-fits-all approach, while also addressing the issue of illegal content[2].

[1] https://freenet.org/about/faq/#why-was-freenet-rearchitected...

[2] https://freenet.org/about/faq/#how-does-freenet-handle-harmf...

[qcl820DV34]

> and after over a year of debate

There was no "year of debate".

You came to the mailing list and announced it for the first time as a finalized decision already,

without any prior debate with the original team.

The "board" you cited as the body which allegedly discussed it did neither join the mailing list discussion,

nor were you willing to hand out their contact info.

It's all public for anyone to see on the mailing list archive:

https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg5526...

https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/

[kstrauser]

WTF. These are some of the first things I clicked through on that page:

- https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg5534...

- https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg5534...

Gee, I can't imagine how that mailing list could ever be toxic.

[FergusArgyll]

So that's what this is about! I wish instead of dancing around the issues and coming up with reasons to hate the project, ppl would just say "I don't like his politics" and he can say "I don't like yours either" and then any new readers will instantly get it

[raffraffraff]

If his definition of woke mind virus is "identitarianism", then it's agree that it's fucking awful. But I wouldn't call it "woke mind virus".

Identitarianism is a cancer, that has been fed via social media algorithms. We seem to have invented a machine for rewarding all of the wrong incentives. Who would have thought that phenomena like audience capture & polarised thought bubbles would be in the palm of the hand, directing thoughts and forming unbreakable opinions on an array of issues that otherwise wouldn't even be on the radar?

I don't think that this is a left, right or in between thing. Identitarianism had infected the entire political spectrum.

BTW: Perhaps I'm wrong but I don't take the Wikipedia definition of "identitarian movement" and identitarianism. I'm thinking entirely about identity politics. "If you're associated with person X you must be Y", or "If you believe A you must be a B". Highly policed thought bubbles. Ostracism. Cancelling.

As a result, today, with technology that can enable mass communication of thought, there are important conversations that can no longer happen in society.

[dyauspitr]

As your average progressive, I agree that I don’t like identarianism. When you have 8-15 years old putting a lot of effort into defining themselves as a “non binary, trans feminist pansexual” it gutturally feels wrong. These kids should not be wasting their time and energy on asinine pursuits like this at that age over performing well academically and over developing their physical prowess. I preferred the 00s where it was generally considered taboo to talk/ask about ethnicity/religion/sexuality.

Unfortunately with that perspective, I end in in the same camp as unabashed bigots and real Nazis.

[raffraffraff]

Yep. This situation doesn't do the "cancellers" much good either. What they want to do is eliminate the 'evil person' from society. Wipe them from social media. Block them. Even get them fired. Make them disappear.

But here's the problem. This whole phenomenon is most prevalent in western style democracy. You cannot take that person's vote. You can engage with them and try to change their mind (but also be open to having your own mind changed too, otherwise it's a disingenuous enterprise). Or you can eject block and cancel. If anything, that just drives them further from your social/political group. Hence the person who you blocked and cancelled starts to look around at the other "so called evil people" outside the bubble, and realise that many of them might be refugees from pleasantville , just like you. You can only see your former bubble after your pushed or pulled out of it.

Bubbles can suck people in, but they can also push people out into the gravitational pull of other bubbles.

[tardedmeme]

Usage of the phrase "woke mind virus" is itself a symptom of identitarianism. Only identitarians use the phrase.

[tardedmeme]

Why is it always people like this who run projects that should be good? SimpleX, Xlibre, Freenet Locutus, that's three, and I'm sure there are more.

Edit: do they all like the letter X, too? I think in this list it's just a coincidence, but maybe?

Edit because I can't post a new comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46608061

[Timwi]

Wild theory: maybe it's because in order to stay focused, passionate and dedicated to a project, you have to have a passionate mind dedicated to a narrower viewpoint. The more open-minded you are, the more likely you accept that detractors might have a point, and then increasingly realize that it's impossible to please everyone.

[SuperNinKenDo]

Disagreeable, passionate people are passionate about doing projects that go against the grain. It's really obvious to anybody actually asking the question instead of just being rhetorical and not giving it any actual thought. The answer is a commpetely obvious one, but one which makes some people uncomfortable, such that they'd rather not confront it, lest they have to confront its implications.

[sanity]

Thank you for putting me in such great company!

[sanity]

Not sure what you mean but I stand by every word I said in that thread.

[outside2344]

A wise boss of mine, after reading a set of threads that I wrote like this, asked me to go think for a day on the difference between "being right" and "being effective."

Some of the things you say in these threads might be "right" but I can assure you that many of them are not effective, which is counterproductive to the goal you are trying to achieve.

[sanity]

I prefer to say what I believe to be true rather than live in fear of how people looking to take offense might misconstrue something.

A culture where people are expected to constantly self-censor to avoid bad-faith interpretations is unhealthy and corrosive.

[bglusman]

You can stand by things you said but also learn from them/from people’s responses to them…. For instance, you declare someone’s response virtue signaling… This hit me in a funny way, partly because it’s valid, it’s true, there is a lot of signaling that goes on you learn to see, virtue and otherwise… but also because of how insidious a criticism it is, because it reframes a debate away from correctness and towards who said it, whether they’re posturing…

I think it’s a category error and an ad hominem attack to bring it up in a debate with someone. It doesn’t mean your wrong or can’t still beleive they were virtue signaling, if that’s what you mean by standing by what you said, but more than one thing can be true and that being your reaction is not honest engagement with the criticism… I don’t care think it’s about the joke very much, it’s not especially funny but not all humor has to be, and I don’t love their reaction to it either, but I think you’re confusing the feedback you’re getting here and there and probably elsewhere that your opinions should change… a sibling comment spoke of being right vs effective, and there’s something to that, but there’s also being right vs having a growth mindset, about being open to genuine conflict that sometimes brings new perspective or insight… But that doesn’t happen when one side shuts down the other with ad hominem attacks or uncharitable assumptions. To be fair, it doesn’t happen online in mailing lists or discussion forums at all very often. Maybe you only get these kinds of reactions here and when people seem more real to you in person you engage differently… I know most people engage differently online than in person, and different pseudonymously than using real names. Someone else here compared you to Linus, and there’s probably something there? There’s no doubt you brought some vision and insight to both these projects, as he did, but something changed for him some years back that was a growth moment and caused him new perspective on how he engaged with people online. The same could still happen for you, and it wouldn’t mean you were giving in to a “woke mind virus”, it would mean you were growing.

[bglusman]

I can’t respond to your response below but I fully agree “a lot of online criticism is not actually about truth-seeking or honest disagreement”, but I believe by ignoring the principle of charity, you undercut your own credibility and value. You may be able to show people how and where they’re in the wrong by demonstrating how THEY’VE made motive and framing the entire point, WITHOUT personally ascribing that as necessarily being a character weakness or hypocrisy or unconcern for the truth, but perhaps just a error on their part as well all make sometimes… just my $0.02

[somerandom2407]

I just want to quickly jump on what you said about Linus. I know a lot of people look at his change and see it as a "growth moment", but my view is that he was forced to change by a growing body of people who take relatively extreme actions against those not seen to be towing the line. There was another group of people like this in history. We rightly condemned that evil group and their actions, and we were once more tolerant and open-minded towards one-another as people. I miss those days.

[subscribed]

If you think this is a correct communication style for someone who thinks they're a leader, I suggest getting an assistant to write your correspondence, or maybe some socialisation bootcamp.

This is grim.

If you stand by it I'd say good.... luck, yeah, good luck, you're singlehandedly the gravest enemy of the project.

[sanity]

Yes, I stand by what I wrote. I'm not going to pretend otherwise because someone dug up an old mailing list post.

If you think a specific statement was wrong, harmful, or dishonest, then explain why. I'll wait.

[angoragoats]

Holy shit. I’m a long-time admirer of freenet and you just single handedly destroyed any positive view of the project I may have held. Get a fucking grip and seek help if you can’t.

[spankalee]

> The woke mind virus, more formally postmodern neo-marxism, is the greatest threat to civilization today.

"The woke mind virus" really? You used that non-ironically? This is not something a serious or sane person would say for real.

[sanity]

You'd be surprised how mainstream these views are outside certain bubbles.

[foobarian]

Lol. It's like Linus but crunchier

[sanity]

I'm told I kinda look like him too. There are worse people to be compared to.

[FEELmyAGI]

Curtis Yarvin is a much better comparison, what with the inscrutable decentralized network software and being a culture war crusader

[DANmode]

“crunchier”?

[ArneBab]

There was no public debate, but he did start to talk to devs 18 months before, and the devs told him quite clearly that they strongly object to repurposing the name.

And that repurposing the name would cause lots of damage.

[sanity]

> There was no "year of debate".

Incorrect, I raised the issue with the lead maintainer over a year prior to that announcement.

> You came to the mailing list and declared it as a finalized decision.

As the project's architect I'm entitled to make decisions about the project's future direction.

> It's all public for anyone to see on the mailing list archive:

> https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg5526...

I stand by every word I said in that mailing list thread.

[qcl820DV34]

> Incorrect, I raised the issue with the lead maintainer over a year prior to that announcement.

The previous lead maintainer, Steve, voiced their frustration with your decision here:

https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg5526...

To which you sent a brash reply, which sounds like you don't know Steve's position in the community:

https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg5526...

To which the current lead maintainer, Arne, said he agrees with the sentiment of Steve:

https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg5526...

So if you discussed this with Arne for a year, then why does he agree with the frustration of Steve?

And even if the discussion with Arne happened, it still was a backroom decision:

Two people are not representative on a project with plenty of developers and an active community.

> As the project's architect I'm entitled to make decisions about the project's future direction.

A sense of entitlement is not a leadership quality.

A leadership quality would be to admit a mistake:

That repurposing the name was not only bad for the original project,

but also for the new one (because these discussions will haunt it forever),

and to then rename the new project to a fresh name which no other software used before.

[sanity]

As the FAQ explains, the existing maintainers didn't agree with my decision, but I stand by it - particularly in light of the fact that we now have a working decentralized group chat on the new Freenet, something that the old architecture could never have supported.

Whether or not it was the right decision will be determined by the outcomes, which so far are promising, because we have a working network that does things that the old architecture could never do.

[16bitvoid]

I also like how his first response to a reply to the announcement (and multiple others) was "who do you speak for?" while simultaneously framing a discussion with a single person, in private, as a good faith effort to hear from the community with the implicit assumption that that one person spoke for the community.

[sanity]

Endeavors that make decisions based on what will please the loudest people in the near term normally run into the ground pretty quickly. There was never any obligation to obtain the approval of "the community", whatever that is.

Nothing about the name change prevented existing users from continuing to use the software just as they had been doing, and many of them said they agreed with the decision.

I honestly only ever hear about this drama on HN, it's a non-issue anywhere else we get attention.

[abno525]

For anyone confused, link is cited badly and mail did not get deleted.

https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg5526...

[itsthecourier]

seems freenet is not free after all, maybe a rebrand to ianet would be more appropriate

[DANmode]

A correction, based on the text as written:

they were saying they debated with themselves,

before making the decision.

[dminik]

> This is a false narrative, from the Freenet FAQ[1]:

I'm sorry, but nothing following that even comes close to proving that it's a false narrative. Quite the opposite actually.

[thih9]

To be fair, I see some goodwill, e.g.:

> To ease the transition the old freenetproject.org domain was redirected to hyphanet’s website, while the recently acquired freenet.org domain was used for the new architecture.

So in that aspect it seems more user friendly than a hard fork.

[stackghost]

>while the old one continues to exist and is maintained under its new name "Hyphanet"

Well, that name pretty much dooms the project to a slow death in obscurity.

[tardedmeme]

To play devil's advocate, wasn't it already long dead?

[outside2344]

So he forked the project and went his own way. I am not sure I see the issue here. This is how we do open source on the internet. You don't have to join him, but he also has the right to go his own way too.

[nextgens]

You're getting this wrong.

He has forked the project (to something that does not share the same goals so "fork" is arguable here), took the name, the cash and the goodwill.

We went from "we have enough donations/donators" to "how do we pay for the upcoming AWS bill?".

As someone who has been fairly active on the "old freenet", I have never cared about money nor funding... but I cannot help but notice that some has likely been misappropriated. Things like the SUMA award (https://web.archive.org/web/20150320201527/http://suma-award...) were awarded specifically for "protection against surveillance and censorship" that the "new freenet" does not even aim to provide.

"The board" of the non-profit seems to have been culled just before the decision. I don't know why, I wasn't on it. Maybe @agl can shime in (he was).

All I know is that this could have been handled better. It's what I wrote back then on https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg5527...

[sanity]

> to something that does not share the same goals so "fork" is arguable here

How do the goals differ, specifically?

> but I cannot help but notice that some has likely been misappropriated

You had no visibility into the project's finances, yet you're publicly implying financial impropriety without evidence.

I've raised substantially more funding for the new Freenet in the past 5 years than was raised during the entire prior 20-year history of the project.

> were awarded specifically for "protection against surveillance and censorship" that the "new freenet" does not even aim to provide.

In what way does a decentralized network with optional anonymity not protect against surveillance and censorship?

> "The board" of the non-profit seems to have been culled just before the decision. I don't know why, I wasn't on it. Maybe @agl can shime in (he was).

You also acknowledge here that you don't know what happened. Those board members' departures were at their request because they were no longer actively involved in the project.

> All I know is that this could have been handled better.

I'm sure you're right about that. But my experience at the time was that the disagreement was fundamentally about the outcome, not the process.

[abc123abc123]

You make claims. Release the books, and people can then verify what you say. If you do not release the books, it is only natural for many people to suspect something wrong.

[sanity]

It isn't "natural" to make baseless accusations based on zero evidence.

[abc123abc123]

Of course there is. Anyone is completely justified in asking what their politicians do, how their non-profits spend their money, or what ever.

The fact that evidence is not provided, if anything, is an indication of potential wrong doing.

I also note that you did not actually respond to what I said. This is additional indication of some potential wrong doing.

[qcl820DV34]

The issue is that the original name, "Freenet", was repurposed for a different codebase.

[sanity]

Different codebase, same purpose.

This isn't even the first time we did a ground-up redesign/rewrite of the Freenet codebase, we did this in 2008 with the 0.7 release.

[FEELmyAGI]

Neither of you get to be freenet, another project with the name predated it by a lot. and throughout the 90s many ISPs were named $PLACENAME_freenet

https://case.edu/ech/articles/c/cleveland-freenet

[qcl820DV34]

Repeating a bad decision does not make it any wiser.

[sanity]

History will be the judge, and so far it's looking very promising given our progress.

[16bitvoid]

What does your progress have to do with the name? You're so defensive that you're reasoning with non sequiturs.

[lallysingh]

Should've called the new one Freenet 2 or Freenet NT.

[acheron]

Freenet 3.11 for Workgroups

[sanity]

Freenet++

[NamlchakKhandro]

No komrade...

[dyauspitr]

Isn’t anonymity the one and only point of freenet.

[SuperNinKenDo]

Thanks so much for the heads up. I loved Freenet as a concept back in the day and used to devote a significant chunk of my tiny hard drive to trying to help out. I looked it up a few months ago and honestly thought I was experiencing some kind of memory dailure when I saw the new project under that name. Was wondering what the project I was so excited for had _actually_ been called all those years back. Now I know what happened, and where to find the project I actually liked.

[seany]

anonymity was the main point of freenet... So weird

[pidgeon_lover]

I wasn't very happy as a user with an interest in tech/internet history to find my old bookmarks and notes had been hijacked by the new renamed project. The Original Freenet (Hyphanet) was quite interesting. The new one, less so, especially with the name hijacking.

[nightpool]

I'm very glad to hear that—the anonymity of the original Freenet has led to it being a very unsavory place that was more well known for CSAM then anything positive or useful. As an outsider, it sounds like this new direction is the right choice for Freenet to try and attract new users and fulfill the team's original goals.

[qcl820DV34]

Extremely depraved things are not the only thing to use freedom of speech for, and freely speaking can result in all kinds of repressions.

And even without agreeing on whether people should be anonymous on the Internet,

it could be agreed that replacing a software which guards against a certain threat model (repressions) with one which does not,

without changing the name, is not exactly a wise decision.

[sanity]

The new Freenet will support the creation of anonymity systems as services on top of it, which is much better architecturally than tying the platform to one approach to anonymity as I did when I designed the original Freenet.

We will also have a decentralized reputation system that will protect people from being exposed to unsavory or illegal content, a common criticism of the old Freenet architecture.

[serf]

less anonymity and a reputation system?

I know you designed the thing, and that was a great effort, but what a miss when compared to the vast majority of freenet users priorities.

[sanity]

I wouldn't describe it as "less anonymity", it's more that the new Freenet gives applications and users different choices about anonymity depending on their requirements. I don't see how more choice is a bad thing - versus forcing the same (imperfect) solution on everyone as in my original design.

Similarly, reputation systems aren't inherently coercive, they're more analogous to spam filtering or trust heuristics, mechanisms for deciding what to prioritize - but ultimate control always remains with the user.

[Forgeties79]

> Extremely depraved things are not the only thing to use freedom of speech for

I’m not a fan of “think of the children“ arguments but the Internet cannot actually be a complete free for all and “freedom of speech” is not some magic shield that overrides all other ethical considerations. CSAM is not a particularly high bar and frankly if you want people to throw in with you then you can’t brush it off so lightly.

[timschmidt]

> I’m not a fan of “think of the children“ arguments

Yet you're making one.

> the Internet cannot actually be a complete free for all

Yet in many important ways, it is.

As much as publishers would like to shut down Scihub, it exists. The Pirate Bay famously persists. Nation states with entirely opposed legal systems connect and interoperate to at least some degree.

[pessimizer]

Scihub and The Pirate Bay are not at all anonymous, aggressively police for CSAM, and rely on reputation systems.

[GoblinSlayer]

North Korean Internet will solve ip4 address exhaustion.

[Forgeties79]

Dude it’s CSAM what are we even doing here.

[timschmidt]

What's CSAM? All of Freenet? Doubtful.

The OP said: "Extremely depraved things are not the only thing to use freedom of speech for, and freely speaking can result in all kinds of repressions."

Which is objectively true.

You're throwing reporters, political dissidents, whistleblowers, minority groups, and just regular people who don't appreciate the Stasi in with the child pornographers which some might take as an insult and offense.

What kind of criminal does Phil Zimmermann look like to you? We had this argument already in the 90s.

[nullsanity]

> Extremely depraved things are not the only thing to use freedom of speech for.

And yet, it's materially all anonymity is actually for in practice, within a margin of error. Tor - mostly crime & CSAM. Crypto - mostly crime. 4chan - mostly degeneracy, some crime. Faceless Corporations - used for crime, and things that should be crimes, but hide under other names.