Necessario supporto a Freenet

----- Forwarded message from Ian Clarke ----
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 18:57:30 -0700
From: Ian Clarke
To: announce@freenetproject.org
Cc:
Subject: [Announce] Status update and appeal for help

Dear Supporters,

Time for a status update, and also an appeal. As you may be aware we have been working hard on a major improvement to the fundamentals of how Freenet searches for and retrieves information called "Next Generation Routing". This holds the promise of dramatically increasing Freenet's speed and usability, while also creating exciting possibilities like live audio broadcasting over Freenet.

Several months ago we decided to postpone a major release so that we could focus on these exciting new developments. Since then we, and Matthew Toseland - our full time developer, have got a trial version of the new routing algorithm up and running and are making rapid progress in identifying and tracking down the bugs that inevitably accompany such a major overhaul.

Unfortunately, since most of our donations are made in the days following a major release, our funds are now extremely depleted to the extent that we may be unable to renew Matthew's contract. Matthew asks for only $1,500 per month, which is a fraction of what he could earn elsewhere. Losing Matthew would be a major blow to the project.

I am generally reluctant to make this kind of appeal to our announcements mailing list, my last such appeal was over half a year ago, and I will refrain from making such appeals in the future unless there is no alternative.

Therefore, if you think you can help the project by making a donation - we would be most grateful. You can make a donation by credit card, "E-Gold", or via snail-mail by visiting our donations page at: http://freenetproject.org/index.php?page=donate

We also recently added the ability for supporters to make a monthly subscription of $5, $10, or $20. This has the advantage of providing a more reliable source of funding to the project. Of course, we still welcome one-time donations as we always have.

Yours gratefully,

Ian Clarke
Freenet Project Coordinator

--
Ian Clarke ian@locut.us
Coordinator, The Freenet Project http://freenetproject.org/
Weblog http://slashdot.org/~sanity/journal