ANNOUNCING Tahoe, the Least-Authority File System, v1.7.0β (beta release for Tahoe-LAFS v1.7.0) (This relnotes.txt document is the beta version of the relnotes.txt document which will announce Tahoe-LAFS v1.7.0 when it is final.) The Tahoe-LAFS team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of version 1.7.0β of Tahoe-LAFS, an extremely reliable distributed data store. Tahoe-LAFS is the first cloud storage system which offers "provider-independent security"—meaning that not even your cloud service provider can read or alter your data without your consent. Here is the one-page explanation of its unique security and fault-tolerance properties: http://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe/trunk/docs/about.html Tahoe-LAFS v1.7.0β is the successor to v1.6.1, which was released February 27, 2010 [1]. v1.7.0β is a major new release with new features and a few bugfixes. It adds a fully functional SFTP interface, support for non-ASCII character encodings, and a new upload algorithm which guarantees that each file is spread over multiple servers for fault-tolerance. See the NEWS file [2] for details. WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? With Tahoe-LAFS, you spread your filesystem across multiple servers, and even if some of the servers fail or are taken over by an attacker, the entire filesystem continues to work correctly, and continues to preserve your privacy and security. You can easily share specific files and directories with other people. In addition to the core storage system itself, volunteers have built other projects on top of Tahoe-LAFS and have integrated Tahoe-LAFS with existing systems. These related projects include frontends for Windows, Macintosh, JavaScript, iPhone, and Android, and plugins for Hadoop, bzr, mercurial, duplicity, TiddlyWiki, and more. See the Related Projects page on the wiki [3]. We believe that strong encryption, Free and Open Source Software, erasure coding, and careful engineering practices make Tahoe-LAFS safer than RAID, removable drive, tape, on-line backup or other Cloud storage systems. This software is developed under test-driven development, and there are no known bugs or security flaws which would compromise confidentiality or data integrity under recommended use. (For all currently known issues please see the known_issues.txt file [4].) COMPATIBILITY This release is fully compatible with the version 1 series of Tahoe-LAFS. Clients from this release can write files and directories in the format used by clients of all versions back to v1.0 (which was released March 25, 2008). Clients from this release can read files and directories produced by clients of all versions since v1.0. Servers from this release can serve clients of all versions back to v1.0 and clients from this release can use servers of all versions back to v1.0. This is the ninth release in the version 1 series. The version 1 series of Tahoe-LAFS will be actively supported and maintained for the forseeable future, and future versions of Tahoe-LAFS will retain the ability to read and write files compatible with Tahoe-LAFS v1. LICENCE You may use this package under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or, at your option, any later version. See the file "COPYING.GPL" [5] for the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2. You may use this package under the Transitive Grace Period Public Licence, version 1 or, at your option, any later version. (The Transitive Grace Period Public Licence has requirements similar to the GPL except that it allows you to wait for up to twelve months after you redistribute a derived work before releasing the source code of your derived work.) See the file "COPYING.TGPPL.html" [6] for the terms of the Transitive Grace Period Public Licence, version 1. (You may choose to use this package under the terms of either licence, at your option.) INSTALLATION Tahoe-LAFS works on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Cygwin, Solaris, *BSD, and probably most other systems. Start with "docs/quickstart.html" [7]. HACKING AND COMMUNITY Please join us on the mailing list [8]. Patches are gratefully accepted -- the RoadMap page [9] shows the next improvements that we plan to make and CREDITS [10] lists the names of people who've contributed to the project. The Dev page [11] contains resources for hackers. SPONSORSHIP Tahoe-LAFS was originally developed by Allmydata, Inc., a provider of commercial backup services. After discontinuing funding of Tahoe-LAFS R&D in early 2009, they have continued to provide servers, bandwidth, small personal gifts as tokens of appreciation, and bug reports. Thank you to Allmydata, Inc. for their generous and public-spirited support. Google, Inc. is sponsoring Tahoe-LAFS development as part of the Google Summer of Code 2010. Google suggested that we should apply for the Summer of Code program, and when we did they generously awarded four sponsorships to students from around the world to hack on Tahoe-LAFS this summer. Thank you to Google, Inc. for their generous and public-spirited support. HACK TAHOE-LAFS! If you can find a security flaw in Tahoe-LAFS which is serious enough that feel compelled to warn our users and issue a fix, then we will award you with a customized t-shirts with your exploit printed on it and add you to the "Hack Tahoe-LAFS Hall Of Fame" [12]. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This is the fifth release of Tahoe-LAFS to be created solely as a labor of love by volunteers. Thank you very much to the team of "hackers in the public interest" who make Tahoe-LAFS possible. In this release we especially owe thanks to David-Sarah Hopwood, who has dedicated many late nights to the project and displayed superb software engineering skills. Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn on behalf of the Tahoe-LAFS team June 8, 2010 Boulder, Colorado, USA [1] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/browser/relnotes.txt?rev=4244 [2] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/browser/NEWS?rev=4443 [3] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/RelatedProjects [4] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/browser/docs/known_issues.txt [5] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/browser/COPYING.GPL [6] http://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe/trunk/COPYING.TGPPL.html [7] http://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe/trunk/docs/quickstart.html [8] http://tahoe-lafs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-dev [9] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/roadmap [10] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/browser/CREDITS?rev=4456 [11] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/Dev [12] http://tahoe-lafs.org/hacktahoelafs/