Open-sourcing sneakernet?
- March 9th, 2010
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So I’ve gotten a couple of e-mails over the past week from people who know about sneakernet and want to see the code. I’m thinking about forking the code and creating an OSS version, but only if enough people are interested and willing to contribute patches.
Sneakernet is a cross-platform filesharing network that uses offline methods for file transfer. You simply visit a website and tell it what files you want, and the network routes files to you from flash drive to flash drive. Eventually, you get an e-mail stating your files are ready, and voila! They decrypt like magic!
Sneakernet takes care of all the routing logic and gets files across a short distance with the minimum amount of work and zero knowledge on the part of the delivery guys. Everything is strongly encrypted.
While I am responsible for some of the code, and have the power to fork and license it, much of it was not written by me. In addition, there are no plans, now or ever, to open the database for any particular sneakernet network. This would strictly be a code fork, enabling you to run your own sneakernet, with the potential to commit patches upstream. To be clear, I have no access to any sneakernet database, nor do I know anyone who does. My responsibility is strictly code.
So if there’s enough interest in an arrangement like this, I can push to get the code released under a friendly license (suggestions?). If there’s not enough interest, I won’t bother.
