-ANNOUNCING Allmydata.org "Tahoe", the Least-Authority Filesystem, v1.2
+still-not-actually-ANNOUNCING-yet Allmydata.org "Tahoe", the Least-Authority Filesystem, v1.3
-We are pleased to announce the release of version 1.2.0 of the "Tahoe"
+We are pleased to announce the release of version 1.3.0 of "Tahoe", the
Least Authority Filesystem.
-The "Tahoe" Least Authority Filesystem is a secure, decentralized,
-fault-tolerant filesystem. All of the source code is available under
-a Free Software, Open Source licence (or two).
+Tahoe-LAFS is a secure, decentralized, fault-tolerant filesystem. All
+of the source code is available under a choice of two Free Software,
+Open Source licences.
This filesystem is encrypted and distributed over multiple peers in
such a way it continues to function even when some of the peers are
unavailable, malfunctioning, or malicious.
-A one-page explanation of the security and fault-tolerance properties
-that it offers is visible at:
+Here is the one-page explanation of the security and fault-tolerance
+properties that it offers:
http://allmydata.org/source/tahoe/trunk/docs/about.html
+This is the successor to v1.2, which was released July 21, 2008 [1].
+This is a major new release, adding a repairer, an efficient backup
+command, support for large files, an (S)FTP server, and much more.
-This is the successor to Allmydata.org "Tahoe" Least Authority
-Filesystem v1.1, which was released June 11, 2008 [1]. This release
-fixes a security issue in Tahoe v1.1, fixes a few small issues in the
-web interface, adds a "check health" operation for mutable files, and
-adds logging/operations/deployment improvements.
+See the NEWS file [2] and the known_issues.txt file [3] for more
+information.
-See the known_issues.txt file [2] and the NEWS file [3] for details.
+In addition to the many new features of Tahoe itself, a handful of
+related projects have sprung up, including Tahoe frontends for Windows
+and Macintosh, two front-ends written in JavaScript, a Tahoe plugin for
+duplicity, a Tahoe plugin for TiddlyWiki, a project to create a new
+backup tool, and three incomplete Tahoe frontends for FUSE. See Related
+Projects on the wiki: [4].
COMPATIBILITY
-The version 1 branch of Tahoe is used as the basis of the consumer
-backup product from Allmydata, Inc. -- http://allmydata.com .
+The version 1 branch of Tahoe is the basis of the consumer backup
+product from Allmydata, Inc. -- http://allmydata.com .
-Tahoe v1.2 is fully compatible with Tahoe v1.0. v1.2 clients produce
-files which can be read by v1.0 clients. v1.2 clients can read files
-produced by clients of all versions >= v0.8. v1.2 servers can serve
-v1.0 clients and v1.2 clients can use v1.0 servers.
+Tahoe v1.3 is fully compatible with Tahoe v1 branch. v1.3 clients
+produce files which can be read by clients of all versions back to v1.0
+(unless the file is too large -- greater than 12 GiB with default
+configuration). v1.3 clients can read files produced by clients of all
+versions since v1.0. v1.3 servers can serve clients of all versions
+back to v1.0 and v1.3 clients can use servers of all versions back to
+v1.0 (but can't upload large files to them).
-This is the third release in the version 1 series. We believe that
+This is the fourth release in the version 1 series. We believe that
this version of Tahoe is stable enough to rely on as a permanent store
of valuable data. The version 1 branch of Tahoe will be actively
-supported and maintained for the forseeable future, and future
-versions of Tahoe will retain the ability to read files and
-directories produced by Tahoe v1 for the forseeable future.
+supported and maintained for the forseeable future, and future versions
+of Tahoe will retain the ability to read files and directories produced
+by Tahoe v1 for the forseeable future.
WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
With Tahoe, you can distribute your filesystem across a set of
computers, such that if some of the computers fail or turn out to be
-malicious, the filesystem continues to work from the remaining
-computers. You can also share your files with other users, using a
-cryptographic capability-based access control scheme.
-
-Because this software is the product of less than two years of active
-development, we do not categorically recommend it for the storage of
-data which is extremely confidential or precious. However, we believe
-that the combination of erasure coding, strong encryption, and careful
-engineering make Tahoe safer than common alternatives, such as RAID,
-or traditional backup onto a remote server, removable drive, or tape.
-
-This software comes with extensive unit tests [4], and there are no
+malicious, the entire filesystem continues to be available, provided by
+the remaining computers. You can also share your files with other
+users, using a simple and flexible access control scheme.
+
+Because this software is the product of less than three years of active
+development, we do not categorically recommend it as the sole
+repository of data which is extremely confidential or precious.
+However, we believe that erasure coding, strong encryption, Free/Open
+Source Software and careful engineering make Tahoe safer than common
+alternatives, such as RAID, removable drive, tape, or "on-line storage"
+or "Cloud storage" systems.
+
+This software comes with extensive unit tests [5], and there are no
known security flaws which would compromise confidentiality or data
integrity. (For all currently known issues please see the
known_issues.txt file [2].)
-This release of Tahoe is suitable for the "friendnet" use case [5] --
+This release of Tahoe is suitable for the "friendnet" use case [6] --
it is easy to create a filesystem spread over the computers of you and
-your friends so that you can share disk space and share files.
+your friends so that you can share disk space and files.
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"
-[6] for the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2.
+[7] for the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2.
You may use this package under the Transitive Grace Period Public
-Licence, version 1.0. The Transitive Grace Period Public Licence says
-that you may distribute proprietary derived works of Tahoe without
-releasing the source code of that derived work for up to twelve
-months, after which time you are obligated to release the source code
-of the derived work under the Transitive Grace Period Public
-Licence. See the file "COPYING.TGPPL.html" [7] for the terms of the
-Transitive Grace Period Public Licence, version 1.0.
+Licence, version 1.0. 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" [8] for the terms of the Transitive Grace Period
+Public Licence, version 1.0.
(You may choose to use this package under the terms of either licence,
at your option.)
INSTALLATION
-Tahoe works on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Cygwin, and Solaris. For
-installation instructions please see "docs/install.html" [8].
+Tahoe works on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Cygwin, and Solaris, and
+probably most other systems which have a Python interpreter and a C/C++
+compiler. Start with "docs/install.html" [9].
HACKING AND COMMUNITY
-Please join us on the mailing list [9] to discuss uses of Tahoe.
-Patches that extend and improve Tahoe are gratefully accepted -- the
-RoadMap page [10] shows the next improvements that we plan to make and
-CREDITS [11] lists the names of people who've contributed to the
-project. The wiki Dev page [12] contains resources for hackers.
+Please join us on the mailing list [10]. Patches that extend and
+improve Tahoe are gratefully accepted -- the RoadMap page [11] shows
+the next improvements that we plan to make and CREDITS [12] lists the
+names of people who've contributed to the project. The wiki Dev page
+[13] contains resources for hackers.
SPONSORSHIP
-Tahoe is sponsored by Allmydata, Inc. [13], a provider of commercial
+Tahoe is sponsored by Allmydata, Inc. [14], a provider of commercial
backup services. Allmydata, Inc. contributes hardware, software,
ideas, bug reports, suggestions, demands, and money (employing several
-allmydata.org Tahoe hackers and instructing them to spend part of
-their work time on this free-software project). Also they distribute
-customized t-shirts just for some of our favorite contributors. We
-are eternally grateful!
+allmydata.org Tahoe hackers and instructing them to spend part of their
+work time on this Free Software project). Also they award customized
+t-shirts to hackers who find security flaws in Tahoe (see
+http://hacktahoe.org ). Thank you to Allmydata, Inc. for their
+generous and public-spirited support.
-Zooko O'Whielacronx
+Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn
on behalf of the allmydata.org team
-July 21, 2008
+
+with special acknowledgment of Brian Warner, whose superb engineering
+skills and dedication are primarily responsible for the Tahoe
+implementation, and largely responsible for the Tahoe design as well,
+not to mention most of the docs and many other things besides
+
+February 11, 2009 (XXX HOPEFULLY)
Boulder, Colorado, USA
-[1] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/browser/relnotes.txt?rev=2716
-[2] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/browser/docs/known_issues.txt
-[3] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/browser/NEWS
-[4] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/Dev
-[5] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/UseCases
-[6] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/browser/COPYING.GPL
-[7] http://allmydata.org/source/tahoe/trunk/COPYING.TGPPL.html
-[8] http://allmydata.org/source/tahoe/trunk/docs/install.html
-[9] http://allmydata.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-dev
-[10] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/roadmap
-[11] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/browser/CREDITS?rev=2677
-[12] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/Dev
-[13] http://allmydata.com
+[1] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/browser/relnotes.txt?rev=2789
+[2] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/browser/NEWS
+[3] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/browser/docs/known_issues.txt
+[4] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/RelatedProjects
+[5] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/Dev
+[6] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/UseCases
+[7] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/browser/COPYING.GPL
+[8] http://allmydata.org/source/tahoe/trunk/COPYING.TGPPL.html
+[9] http://allmydata.org/source/tahoe/trunk/docs/install.html
+[10] http://allmydata.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-dev
+[11] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/roadmap
+[12] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/browser/CREDITS?rev=2677
+[13] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/Dev
+[14] http://allmydata.com
projects / tahoe-lafs / tahoe-lafs.git / commitdiff