Shoalsteed
commented
1 year ago Posted to reddit:
n February 2005, zzz installed I2P for the first time. He went from struggling to explain I2P or answer questions about its design and use of cryptography, to working with a small team to implement new cryptography and transports.
jrandom, who was the lead dev at the time, left the project suddenly in 2007. The project realized that even though it claimed to be totally decentralized, it actually depended on a number of centralized resources, above all, on jrandom. Work was done throughout 2008 to distribute roles to a number of people. Additionally, it was realized that development had essentially stalled in 2007, because jrandom had stopped working on it, but had not delegated to other developers. Nobody had an overall understanding of the code base.
zzz was part of the team that managed the project through this crisis and has imparted those lessons to the people who have joined the team throughout the years.
There is a lifecycle for FOSS maintainers, and thankfully zzz has onboarded people to take on his tasks as a release manager and to continue protocol development. I2P is no less secure, but with the loss of a core maintainer, it will need to acclimate to its new roadmaps and future. I have been involved with the project for over 8 years, and have seen many people come and go. I2P was very fortunate to have zzz for as long as it did.
The project will continue, as it has for over 20 years, now with the benefit of many incredible development landmarks thanks to zzz and many more people who worked, and continue to work together on I2P.
In the words of zzz: “The best way to maintain security and help the network is to run the latest release.”
In February 2005, zzz installed I2P for the first time.
zzz was not a hacker, or an activist, or a professional programmer. He had no preconceived plans to contribute to the project, and had never written a line of Java. He had maybe used IRC once.
By summer 2005, zzz had set up two websites. The first was zzz.i2p, which over the years became a central resource for I2P development. The second was stats.i2p, the first site to gather statistics on I2P network performance and present graphs on both the network and individual routers. While the individual router statistics eventually had to be shut down due to the tremendous growth of the network, the overall performance graphs remained.
Over the years he would begin to understand the code base. From struggling to explain I2P to others or even basic questions about its design and use of cryptography while in Berlin at CCC in 2008, to implementing completely new cryptography and protocols, completed in 2022.
The project will continue, as it has, now with the benefit of the many incredible development landmarks thanks to zzz and many more people who worked together on over a decade of roadmaps. Thank you for your contributions, zzz. The project would not be where it is without you, and the team wishes you well.
"As usual, we recommend that you update to the new release when it's available. The best way to maintain security and help the network is to run the latest release." - zzz
Thank you.