

Clearskies (BitTorrent Sync alternative) fundraiser - voltagex_
https://www.bountysource.com/teams/clearskies/fundraiser

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deftnerd
I've been bothered that Bittorrent Sync isn't opensource. Alternatives are
always welcome.

What bothers me is that the fundraising site they use charges 10%. That's a
lot. Are there not fundraising sites out there with less painful cuts or
alternative revenue streams?

~~~
parfamz
Actually if you have time and want to contribute to the project, it's better
than donating money.

We need a review of the crypto, development, logo design, improve the
documentation of the protocol, get more exposure, etc.

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quasque
Would it not be more sensible for the authors to have a reasonably complete
implementation for testing, and then request funding to polish it off with a
nice UI and a security audit?

As it is at the moment, it seems quite risky to fund this.

~~~
voltagex_
Couldn't you look at it from the other direction? A complete implementation is
more important than a pretty UI at the moment.

I really hope more people fund it.

~~~
quasque
Yes but there's no guarantee of a complete implementation, and as far as I can
tell from looking at the website, no way of getting one's money back if the
work is not done.

At least if there is already a working prototype, then that inspires
confidence in those who might be interested in donating.

~~~
cottonseed
There is a working prototype. Steven Jewel, the original author, wrote the
spec and an initial prototype in Ruby. To support a wide variety of platforms,
it was decided to rewrite that prototype in C++. The Ruby prototype, which I
believe is no longer being maintained, can be found here:

[https://github.com/jewel/clearskies-
ruby](https://github.com/jewel/clearskies-ruby)

~~~
quasque
Thanks, I hadn't seen that. Looks like they've since updated their
bountysource page with more information, including this link.

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Dystopian
Looks quite interesting.

To be completely honest, I've used Bittorrent Sync + my own server to roll my
own in-house Dropbox like service between my machines and haven't had any
issues at all.

Sure. I wish it was open source. Yes. I wish it had an open API (though, they
currently have a beta version of their API
[http://www.bittorrent.com/sync/developers/api](http://www.bittorrent.com/sync/developers/api)).
At the end of the day though, I really don't feel like I really need to jump
ship to an alternative.

~~~
voltagex_
Did you manage to get BTSync working without hitting BitTorrent Inc's tracker?
That's the main issue I have.

~~~
runjake
I have. It works just fine. But you have to hard code the peer IP addresses or
hostnames when not using a tracker server, as mentioned in the docs.

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dang
Fundraiser posts like this are not great for HN. That a cause wants money
isn't intellectually interesting. If the project is new and significant, I
guess it's ok. But it would be better to link to the most substantive page
about the project, and mention the fundraiser in the thread.

Crowdfunding is a great thing, so I'm not sure exactly where to draw the line
on this. What I'm sure of, though, is that posts entitled "Just 12 hours
remaining to hit stretch goals" shouldn't be here. This post wasn't like that,
but others have been.

I'm not casting doubt on the merit of any particular fundraiser, and
especially not this one.

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RustyRussell
I couldn't find any background on the authors, so how can I tell if this is
solid?

~~~
voltagex_
Good question. I know it's not that concrete, but Pedro Larroy has quite a lot
of GitHub activity [https://github.com/larroy](https://github.com/larroy), and
so does Steven Jewel - [https://github.com/jewel](https://github.com/jewel)

There's a semi-active mailing list at
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/clearskies-
dev](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/clearskies-dev)

That's all I've got for now.

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de_dave
SyncThing is another open-source implementation that's worth a look:
[https://github.com/calmh/syncthing](https://github.com/calmh/syncthing)

------
wmf
Is this better than Ori?
[http://ori.scs.stanford.edu/](http://ori.scs.stanford.edu/)

~~~
darklajid
I still want to look into Ori. What makes Clearskies interesting for me is the
list of platforms it wants to support. Notably (missing in Ori for my use
cases):

\- Android

\- Windows

Reference: Your site's claiming

We currently support Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD.

and

[https://github.com/larroy/clearskies_core#supported-
compiler...](https://github.com/larroy/clearskies_core#supported-compilers)
says

Our target is to support the following platforms in order of development
effort: Linux, Android, Windows, Mac, iOS.

------
Executor
Yes, yes, and yes!

