Building an open source project
CommonsNet is an open source project in a wireless network area. To run it successfully we need to join a hard work, great ideas and a satisfying cooperation. But, above all we should have in mind several rules and tips which can be learnt from other projects related to this subject, which help them to make an initial idea a huge success and gain a wide range of participants. All of them are created to achieve main common goals – to make our world more democratic, unleash human potential and share resources with other people without restrictions. So, it is good to use each other’s experience to build greater things. One of the best is Freifunk.
Freifunk
The main idea
In today’s world Internet is undoubtedly a great source of knowledge and platform to communicate with other people and sharing, but in the same time commercial and subject to the law. It causes that firstly someone can control all data over the network and next, anyone who wants to surf the Internet, must usually pay for the right to use the infrastructure. It results in a digital division and resources’ restrictions. But is it possible to change it at all? Freifunk is a nice proof that it is not only a daydream. Thanks to their efforts people are able to build and then operate their network, unhindered distribute resources and support an existing and now social structure. It helps to build a world full of educated people aware of the subjects of communication and freedom of information. It is amazing, isn’t it ?
Follow an inspiring idea which influences on world significantly
If you look at Freifunk example, you can realize that the face of their success are people who simply want to influence on world significantly. A lesson to CommonsNet team is that doing is learning, and if you have a good idea, you should start fulfilling it. Your small efforts can be a part of bigger initiative – as in Frefunk example – global movement for free infrastructure and open frequencies, but first of all you should simply start working on your aim, as Freifunk which focuses on making Internet free for users – trying to enable anyone to enjoy news, movies, music, radio stations, blogs, photo services without being dependent on central provider.
People who have common goals are your power
Next, it is also important to have a great vision in mind which is a bright light on a long way to achieve final results. As we can see Freifunk community understands it very well. They work to see the decentralised infrastructure belonging to the individual members of the community itself. It means that each user in the free radio network can operate services and offer them to others. In return, he or she can also transfer data, such as text, music and movies via the internal Freifunk power or play over furnished by participants in the network services to chat, phone calls and share online games.
Have your vision in mind while working
German law is one of the main reason why Freifunk initiative catches so many collaborators. Secondary liability is the legal situation that makes the owners of open / non-encrypted wireless access points liable for what other users do over their internet connection. The owners can thus be forced to pay for copyright infringements of third persons just because they opened their network to the public. This legal practice led to fear and uncertainty and made many people close their access points, e.g. in cafés or in public location. But thanks to Freifunk initiative releasing Internet free without fear can become a reality.
Resolve real problems to make life easier
The data transfer to other in Freifunk vision takes place free and uncensored based on Pico Peering Agreement. This agreement describes how the transmission of other people’s data is handled in a free network and has become a core agreement of the community. The Pico Peering Agreement can be seen here
Short history
Let’s take a look at Freifunk development’s story which began in 2002 at a workshop in Berlin. Particpants then started a German site of freifunk.net and agreed upon regular meetings in Berlin to build their own free wifi network. Since then they meet every Wednesday at c-base Hackerspace.
Later, in 2003 Freifunk activists founded the non-profit association – Förderverein Freie Netzwerke e.V. to support free communication infrastructures. In the next years, the initiative became quite successful all over Germany, also because it became easier to install the Freifunk firmware on wireless routers.
In 2012 Berlin Freifunk community run project called Freifunk Freedom Fighter Box to fight against secondary liability and they got a lot of media attention. It was a preconfigured access point that sent all data from the public network to Sweden over a VPN connection. In Sweden (as in most other countries), there is no secondary liability.
In 2013, the Hamburg Freifunk community set up a network of more than 300 nodes,using VPN tunnels to the Netherlands. Many new Freifunk communities emerged.
How it works
We’ve mentioned earlier that Freifunk is a wireless network project. Not, let us explain how it really works. Freifunk created a mesh technology to bring up ad hoc WLAN networks. WLAN typical client-server operation are distributed in a so-called Infrastructure mode (an access point as a server, devices as a client), while in a mesh network all routers connect to each other using a special software. When a router fails, this software automatically calculates a new route to the destination. It happens dynamically based on the availability of the node and the connection quality and utilization.
There are several different implementations of the firmware depending on the hardware and protocols local communities use. In this case, the software is called Freifunk firmware which is routers’ operating systems, able to be changed, and is based mainly on OpenWrt. Freifunk usually uses B.A.T.M.A.N protocol.
The routing software contacts other nodes in the mesh, and retrieves information about from who else is on the network, and calculates paths to existing nodes ( ad-hoc routing ). Special routing protocols are used to allow for targeted data forwarding in a mobile ad hoc. Their task is to determine a path from the source to the destination node. They should be as short as possible, or use a minimum-loaded regions of the network. Additional requirements for the protocols are as small as possible routing tables, which must be updated if nodes disappear, move or appear new and the time and the number of messages that are needed for finding a route should be as low as possible.
Technology
People are joined the idea, but when it comes to technology, nobody in Freifunk community is forced to use one standard of hardware and firmware. However, participants are encouraged to limit to a few products in the beginning and are provided with examples of hardware that other communities use successfully. While setting up a hardware asking is always recommended (and thanks to Freifunk resources easy). Don’t hesitate to contact to neightboring or national communitites for tips and hints.
Give contributors examples how to use something
The same to Freifunk firmare. There are various ones – all described on Freifunk website. One of the most popular is gluon which has many useful features and provides support for generating a respective local version. The alternative is Meshkit. It is a configurator for the firmware. The router is completely configured after the installation and can be used immediately. Each community must create a separate profile for their local version.
Gateway servers and VPNs are like bridges from the Freifunk network to the Internet, so users do not have to only use local services, but can also surf the Internet. In OLSR networks, each router can take over the functions of a gateway and provide access to the Internet. To connect network clouds that cannot directly see each other and to protect against secondary liability, most communities use VPN services for routing the internet traffic. It’s important to set up gateways locally, and then getting access to VPN.
There are various architectural setups so stakeholders can simply ask the existing, neighboring communities and quickly find a solution for them.
Community
It’s nothing really surprising that connection to whole community is one of the most important part of cooperation. It happens best via mailing lists, chat or face-to-face meeting on regularly scheduled meetings, which should be able to found in transparent resources provided on website or blog.
Care about different ways of communicating – chats, mailing lists, face-to-face meetings
Because Freifunk has 310 communities which are placed in many regions, towns and villages it is also a good example of how to build wide network successfully. Each of them usually have their own subdomain or place to start with wiki pages. Their URL (city.freifunk.net) is then used as ESSID local Freifunk network.
It’s very easy for perspective contributors to find local communities and get details about them. All of these information can be found on Freifunk wiki pages. Users are provided with both contact/social media details and technical ones – such as what kind of firmware or routing they use to make joining easier to new participants.
Remember to provide contributors with a clear information which can be found easily in your resources
It’s quite interesting how Freifunk shares their brand with local communities. Each community is enabled to use a main logo, which is available under Creative Commons, although it is not neccessary. So, many communities develop variations with local reference, or some simply use name. But most of them usually retain stylistic feature so that the logo can be easily recognised.
Each community can also gain new members. If someone wants to start contributing, ask for details or dispel doubts he or she can easily find contact details and mailing list of preferred community provided on main Freifunk webiste.
As in open source project anyone is welcomed, it is really important to give people some initial and valuable tips how to start and enlarge the idea. Freifunk makes it extremely easy for new collaborators providing them with simple todo list to go through it successfully. First, all potential contributors need to catch the vision of Freifunk, then they should read about the latest activities in local communities on freifunk.net website, or see which services are actually offered. Then they can contact an existing community near them to gain all needed knowledge from Freifunk experts, and quickly run their own community. A key part is without doubts getting familiar with the technology and building own infrastructure.
Make contribution easy. Prepare a simple instruction how to join your community
Building an extended community
Gathering new collaborators is main part of open source society. A project can not develop if nobody wants to cooperate to develop it. So, finding new people is even if not the easiest part of working, the most important one. To make it easier to CommonsNet team, we can follow some good Frefunk’s strategies which can teaches us how to find new people successfully, and let them get involved in our initiative.
First of all – supporting local, regular meetings in a hackingspace, a room at university or a cafe / bar make the cooperation easier. Then creating local communication channels, such as a mailing list, Facebook fan page and Twitter account are really important. Designed and maintained well can help to gain new members. Similarly using own contacts is a perfect way to build a community, especially because friends are easier to convince. Moreover, sharing an idea by presenting it to thematically related groups such as local computer clubs, self-organized centers or home projects is also very welcomed and can bring many benefits. Last but not least is to remember about only-consumers, and thus creating possibly better-network content that is a key value to want to participate in the network for new members.
Organize regular meetings and share an idea by presenting it to thematically related groups
Services
Open source initiative and own brand extends also by building dedicated services. Take a look at Freifunk ones. They have set up a special bug tracker where anyone can report error in a service or website, or a pad to a collaborative writing. Then they have created Global News Agregator to collect together the latest news regarding Wireless Community Networks from around the world and freifunk.net API to let each community provides its data prepared in a defined format and writes in the directory.
Support
Apart from being a contributor and creating a local community there are many other ways of supporting open source intiative. Freifunk has great examples how to achieve their needs by developing various channels of supporting adjusted to people’s different skills.
Prepare different ways of contributing to meet people skills and interests
So, people who are designers, or have artistic skills are welcomed to design labels, flyers, websites, applications or t-shirts. The other group can help to write articles, take photographs, translate or produce videos. Then, they are eager to see programmers and administration people, who can help maintaining the hardware, firmware, and services or people who are able to develop or invent new applications for the community network, as well as free networkers who can offer their own services and post them up on the Freifunk website.
Stakeholders can also add a Freifunk link to their own website. That’s a nice proof that they support free wireless network idea. The next thing is public support. Freifunk wants the society to gain a greater understanding of digital communication network as the freedom and openess of these same networks are threatened by ignorance. That’s why they organize many social actions like mass surveillance or fight against german “Storerhaftung” . To support Freifunk in these great initiative it’s good to inform anyone about the problem of secondary liability laws. Then, legal actions are also highly appreciated. It’s advisable to ask national MP whether politicians are aware of the problem and what they propose to do to address this issue, and write emails to them directly or go to citizen consultations provided by the local MP office. It is also possible to design a logo or a banner with the campaign slogan ” Freifunk instead of fear ” that can be embedded into blogs and websites to increase the awareness of this problematic legislation, or support the campaign by the Friends of Free Networks e.V. with donation.
Finance
If you want to collect money set up different projects so that people can support it
Open source projects develop mainly thanks to great work of voluntary contributors. They participate in an initiative to gain and share their knowledge/skills, build tools to solve specific problems and achieve common goals to make this world more friendly. There is no doubt that it’s the main, irreplaceable source of development. But anyway money still play an important role, and thus open source initiatives are not closed to financial support as well. They usually define different goals which can be completed thanks to donation, and also sometimes set up a special Foundation to raise them.
This article was created thanks to Freifunk.net rich resources. You can find them via following links.
Source:
- http://wiki.freifunk.net/Hauptseite
- https://freifunk.net/en/what-is-it-about/
- https://freifunk.net/en/how-to-join/support-our-campaigns/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_community_network
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freifunk
- http://freifunk-ruhrgebiet.de/
- https://harz.freifunk.net/
- https://wiki.freifunk.net/Berlin
- https://freifunk.net/en/how-to-join/create-a-new-freifunk-community/
- http://wiki.freifunk.net/ESSID.freifunk.net
- http://wiki.freifunk.net/FAQ_Organisation#Ich_m.C3.B6chte_euch_gern_finanziell_unterst.C3.BCtzen.
- http://wiki.freifunk.net/FAQ_Rechtliches
- http://wiki.freifunk.net/Kategorie:Konferenzen
- http://wiki.freifunk.net/Kategorie:Freifunk-Community
- https://freifunk.net/
This is only a part of Wireless Network projects series. Stay tuned for next articles!. This article is also up to updates. If you have any comments and suggestion, or want to add something important to this article please leave your comment below or contact us. We will appreciate it very much.
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