Roger Dingledine: Hi Roger,
> We're in an interesting situation here, where we can use their bridge > funding for other more important things if we don't spent it all on > bridges. So maybe the subject should have been the more counterintuitive > "Help fund Tor bundle usability by running a fast unpublished bridge". > > Another option would be to give it to Moritz et al at torservers.net > so they can run more fast exits -- at which point Moritz might end up > sending a similar mail saying "Help us run more exit relays by running > a fast unpublished bridge". > > Now that I think about it, maybe the best way to phrase it would be as > a matching donation: "Run a fast unpublished bridge with 2 IP addresses, > and we have a funder who will match your donation by giving $200-300/mo > to Tor." That's the reasoning that led me to say it's a great way to > contribute to Tor if you can't run a fast relay yourself. Sounds all plausible to me. > Another model I've been pondering is to offer people some funding to > run a fast *non*-exit relay along with a pair of extra IP addresses for > these unpublished bridges. But on the theory that exits are more scarce > than non-exits (and I don't want to muddy the current exit experiment > with even more money), I figured it would be better to separate the roles. Understandable. > This discussion really goes back to a simple question: is it better to > use our funding for more design and development, or for strengthening > the network? For exit relays, I think choosing "strengthen the network" > is a great and worthwhile experiment. I agree on the exits. Better design and more development could be beneficial to Tor. > But for bridges, since the current > Tor transport and current bridge distribution strategies are not great, In the long run you are right. New fast bridges *might* improve the situation for censored users, but that won't last very long. > I think it's better to use funding for better designs and better code. Yes, that's much better over time. > I should note that I actually encouraged VoA to want unpublished bridges: > if we set up fast bridges and published them via bridges.torproject.org > today, they'd get blocked quickly in China. They have fixed IP addresses which would result in permanently blocked bridges. I wonder how good the manual bridge distribution is. When VoA is fine with spending their money for other stuff as long as their goal is achieved it's reasonable. > I'm especially hoping to hear from volunteers for whom setting up a few > extra bridges is basically free -- for example, those already running > fast non-exit relays who have a few more IP addresses nearby. This is > also a nice way for students at universities to get involved if they're > not ready to run a fast public relay quite yet. That would be beneficial to Tor. > I hope that helps to explain. For me it was helpful. I understood the goal in the first place, but was a little concerned. After all I guess spending money for design and code is more helpful than bridges for anyone. > Sorry for exposing the internals of running > a non-profit. But I think transparency is especially important here. :) I don't know why you feel sorry. Transparency is important for non-profit, at least for most I guess. Sebastian _______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
