preface.texi (9958B)
1 @node Preface 2 @chapter Preface 3 4 @c FIXME: Do we have to mention that this is Free Software? 5 @c FIXME: where did 'Free Software' in this sentence fit before 6 @c FIXME: we changed it? 7 This collection of manuals describes GNUnet, a framework 8 for secure peer-to-peer networking with the high-level goal to provide 9 a strong foundation for a global, distributed network 10 that provides security and privacy. 11 GNUnet in that sense aims to replace the current Internet protocol stack. 12 Along with an application for secure publication of files, it has grown to 13 include all kinds of basic applications for the foundation of a new 14 Internet. 15 16 @menu 17 * About this book:: 18 * Contributing to this book:: 19 * Introduction:: 20 * Project governance:: 21 * Typography:: 22 @end menu 23 24 @node About this book 25 @section About this book 26 27 The books (described as ``book'' or ``books'' in the following) 28 bundled as the ``GNUnet Reference Manual'' are based on the historic 29 work of all contributors to previous documentation of GNUnet. 30 It is our hope 31 that the content is described in a way that does not require any 32 academic background, although some concepts will require further 33 reading. 34 35 Our (long-term) goal with these books is to keep them 36 self-contained. If you see references to Wikipedia and other external 37 sources (except for our academic papers) it means that we are working 38 on a solution to describe the explanations found there which fits our 39 use-case and licensing. 40 41 Previously the documentation was contained in Drupal books, on the 42 old website. This format was considered unmaintainable for the future, so 43 Texinfo was chosen. You might find old and very old sections in 44 here in addition to more recent content. It took a long time to 45 finish the move to Texinfo (from Drupal to LaTeX to wrong Texinfo 46 output dump to good Texinfo) and only recently (late 2018, early 47 2019) content checking started. We apologize to the reader for 48 any inconvenience and hope you apply logic where bad advice from 49 10 years ago can be found (pipe to sudo to install software is 50 one example). Patches (contributions) to this documentation are more 51 than welcome! 52 53 The first chapter (``Preface'') as well as the second chapter 54 (``Philosophy'') give an introduction to GNUnet as a project, what 55 GNUnet tries to achieve. ``Key Concepts'' explains the key concepts 56 in GNUnet. 57 These three chapters are the most complete in the documentation. 58 They are followed by chapters which explain specific parts of 59 GNUnet (and need more work): 60 ``Installing GNUnet'', ``GNUnet Contributors Handbook'' and 61 ``GNUnet Developer Handbook''. 62 63 @node Contributing to this book 64 @section Contributing to this book 65 66 @c FIXME: There's a good amount of repetition here, we should 67 @c FIXME: fix this. 68 The GNUnet Reference Manual is a collective work produced by various 69 people throughout the years. 70 71 The version you are reading is derived 72 from many individual efforts hosted on one of our old websites. 73 In the end it was considered to be impractical to read by 74 those who required the information. 75 With the conversion to Texinfo --- the version you are reading 76 right now --- we hope to address this in the longterm. 77 Texinfo is the documentation language of the GNU project. 78 79 While it can be intimidating at first and look scary or complicated, 80 it is just another way to express text format instructions. 81 82 We encourage you to take this opportunity and learn about Texinfo, 83 learn about GNUnet, and one word at a time we will arrive at a 84 book which explains GNUnet in the least complicated way to you. 85 86 Even when you don't want to or can't learn Texinfo, you can contribute. 87 Send us an Email or join our IRC chat room on freenode and talk with 88 us about the documentation (the preferred way to reach out is the 89 mailinglist, since you can communicate with us without waiting on 90 someone in the chatroom). 91 One way or another you can help shape the understanding of GNUnet 92 without the ability to read and understand its sourcecode. 93 94 @node Introduction 95 @section Introduction 96 97 GNUnet in its current version is the result of almost 20 years of work 98 from many contributors. So far, most contributions were made by 99 volunteers or people paid to do fundamental research. At this stage, 100 GNUnet remains an experimental system where 101 significant parts of the software lack a reasonable degree of 102 professionalism in its implementation. Furthermore, we are aware of a 103 significant number of existing bugs and critical design flaws, as some 104 unfortunate early design decisions remain to be rectified. There are 105 still known open problems; GNUnet remains an active research project. 106 107 The project was started in 2001 when some initial ideas for improving 108 Freenet's file-sharing turned out to be too radical to be easily 109 realized within the scope of the existing Freenet project. We lost 110 our first contributor on 11.9.2001 as the contributor realized that 111 privacy may help terrorists. The rest of the team concluded that it 112 was now even more important to fight for civil liberties. The first 113 release was called ``GNet'' -- already with the name GNUnet in mind, 114 but without the blessing of GNU we did not dare to call it GNUnet 115 immediately. A few months after the first release we contacted the 116 GNU project, happily agreed to their governance model and became an 117 official GNU package. 118 119 Within the first year, we created 120 @uref{https://gnu.org/s/libextractor, GNU libextractor}, a helper library 121 for meta data extraction which has been used by a few other projects 122 as well. 2003 saw the emergence of pluggable transports, the ability 123 for GNUnet to use different mechanisms for communication, starting 124 with TCP, UDP and SMTP (support for the latter was later dropped due 125 to a lack of maintenance). In 2005, the project first started to 126 evolve beyond the original file-sharing application with a first 127 simple P2P chat. In 2007, we created 128 @uref{https://gnu.org/s/libmicrohttpd, GNU libmicrohttpd} 129 to support a pluggable transport based on HTTP. In 2009, the 130 architecture was radically modularized into the multi-process system 131 that exists today. Coincidentally, the first version of the ARM 132 service (ARM: Automatic Restart Manager) 133 was implemented a day before systemd was announced. From 2009 134 to 2014 work progressed rapidly thanks to a significant research grant 135 from the Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft. This resulted in particular 136 in the creation of the R5N DHT, CADET, ATS and the GNU Name System. 137 In 2010, GNUnet was selected as the basis for the 138 @uref{https://secushare.org, secushare} online 139 social network, resulting in a significant growth of the core team. 140 In 2013, we launched @uref{https://taler.net, GNU Taler} to address 141 the challenge of convenient 142 and privacy-preserving online payments. In 2015, the 143 @c XXX: It is not correct to refer to pEp as pEp stylistic, 144 @c XXX: but the correct version would lead to problems with 145 @c XXX: some of our outputs and/or older versions of texinfo 146 @c XXX: and devices that display versions on consoles etc. 147 @c XXX: This is why we keep the pEp until proven that p(triple bar)p 148 @c XXX: does not create broken outputs. 149 @uref{https://pep.foundation/, pretty Easy privacy} (pEp) project 150 announced that they will use GNUnet as the technology for their 151 meta-data protection layer, ultimately resulting in GNUnet e.V. 152 entering into a formal long-term collaboration with the pEp 153 Foundation. In 2016, Taler Systems SA, a first startup using GNUnet 154 technology, was founded with support from the community. 155 156 GNUnet is not merely a technical project, but also a political 157 mission: like the GNU project as a whole, we are writing software to 158 achieve political goals with a focus on the human right of 159 informational self-determination. Putting users in control of their 160 computing has been the core driver of the GNU project. With GNUnet we 161 are focusing on informational self-determination for collaborative 162 computing and communication over networks. 163 164 The Internet is shaped as much by code and protocols as it is by its 165 associated political processes (IETF, ICANN, IEEE, etc.). 166 Similarly its flaws are not limited to the protocol design. Thus, 167 technical excellence by itself will not suffice to create a better 168 network. We also need to build a community that is wise, humble and 169 has a sense of humor to achieve our goal to create a technical 170 foundation for a society we would like to live in. 171 172 173 @node Project governance 174 @section Project governance 175 176 GNUnet, like the GNU project and many other free software projects, 177 follows the governance model of a benevolent dictator. This means 178 that ultimately, the GNU project appoints the GNU maintainer and can 179 overrule decisions made by the GNUnet maintainer. Similarly, the 180 GNUnet maintainer can overrule any decisions made by individual 181 developers. Still, in practice neither has happened in the last 20 182 years for GNUnet, and we hope to keep it that way. 183 184 The current maintainers of GNUnet are: 185 186 @itemize @bullet 187 188 @item @uref{https://grothoff.org/christian/, Christian Grothoff} 189 @item @uref{https://schanzen.eu, Martin Schanzenbach} 190 191 @end itemize 192 193 The GNUnet project is supported by GNUnet e.V., a German association 194 where any developer can become a member. GNUnet e.V. serves as a 195 legal entity to hold the copyrights to GNUnet. GNUnet e.V. may also 196 choose to pay for project resources, and can collect donations as 197 well as choose to adjust the license of the 198 software (with the constraint that it has to remain free software). 199 In 2018 we switched from GPL3 to AGPL3, in practice these changes do 200 not happen very often. 201 202 203 @node Typography 204 @section Typography 205 206 When giving examples for commands, shell prompts are used to show if the 207 command should/can be issued as root, or if "normal" user privileges are 208 sufficient. We use a @code{#} for root's shell prompt, a 209 @code{%} for users' shell prompt, assuming they use the C-shell or tcsh 210 and a @code{$} for bourne shell and derivatives. 211 @c TODO: Really? Why the different prompts? Do we already have c-shell 212 @c TODO: examples?