Freenet Project status report - and request for your assistance

Hi all, time for a status update.

The pace of coding on Freenet has increased dramatically since the =20
release of the 0.7 alpha. We now have an active group of core =20
developers working with Matthew Toseland (our full-time dev), and a =20
growing community of developers working on third-party applications =20
through the Freenet Client Protocol. After the rather stagnant period =20=

before the decision to switch to a darknet model, Freenet is now more =20=

active and vibrant than it has ever been.

Current estimates put the size of the darknet between 300-400 nodes, =20
not bad for a hard-to-use alpha release, and we are seeing an average =20=

of about 50 commits per week from developers. We have 4 Google Summer =20=

of Code projects working on everything from a new load-balancing =20
mechanism, to a cross-platform file upload and download utility =20
(called "Thaw"), and a flexible user-friendly installer.

We have also been thinking hard about how to minimize the inherent =20
usability challenges posed by a darknet approach, and with this in =20
mind, have implemented support for third party applications to add =20
and remove darknet connections via FCP. This means we can do things =20
like write IM plugins to make it very easy to establish connections =20
to friends.

We will also be deploying "opennet" functionality, so that users who =20
don't need the security offered by the darknet, can just start up a =20
node and get going immediately, as with previous versions of Freenet, =20=

but this time with the benefits of NAT circumvention and a UDP-based =20
transport.

On the more administrative side, Florent Daigni=E8re has been a big =20
help, setting up a bug tracker (https://bugs.freenetproject.org/), =20
and a variety of other tools to help streamline Freenet's development =20=

process.

Its not all good news though, despite the generosity of many of our =20
users, donations to the project have been unable to keep-up with the =20
$2300 per month (a meager salary for a software developer in the UK) =20
needed by Matthew Toseland, and right now we are on the verge of not =20
being able to continue to pay him - which would obviously be terrible =20=

for the project. In the past, users and supporters of the project =20
have been extremely generous when we have asked them to help us out =20
of a financial hole, and I am hoping that you can be similarly =20
generous on this occasion.

With this in mind, I would ask that you visit our donations page on =20
the website, it can be found at:

    http://freenetproject.org/donate.html

And please donate anything you can spare.

Many thanks,

Ian Clarke,
Freenet Project Coordinator.