Author Archives: Christian Heise

Growing Together – A report from a successful Wireless Community Weekend 2014

More than sixty people from all over Europe came together at the C-Base in Berlin for the 10th Wireless Community Weekend, the most important meeting of the year for Germany’s Freifunk groups. Wonderful weather, a relaxed atmosphere and interesting lectures made for a productive weekend with lots of lively discussion, as shown by the feedback from Twitter surrounding the WCW.

There were many new faces from newly created groups. Alongside the recently founded groups, such as Magdeburg, Padeborn and Lüneburg were activists from all over Germany. Of course, the “usual suspects” from Berlin, Leipzig and Weimar played their part, as well as Developers from openWRT and OLSR. We’d also like to thank our sponsors and helpers as well as the c-base members for their hospitality and support.

The dual focal points of the WCW 2014 were Decentralisation and Cooperation:

  • How can we improve the cooperation between our communities and share resources whilst maintaining the decentralised structures of Freifunk? How can small or young communities profit and learn from the experiences of larger, established communities? The panel discussion on organisational structures emphasised the diverse views within the community and the importance of decentralisation whilst underlining the desire to deepen the existing collaborative efforts.
  • Which strategies should we pursue in using the IPv6 address space? The subject is complex and offers many, sometimes conflicting, alternatives. As part of a pilot project, communities in Berlin, Lübeck and Weimar have been provided with addresses from the IPv6 pool so that they can try various scenarios and share the knowledge gained with other groups.
  • Another lecture covered the latest developments in the Freifunk API. A Project born of the Google Summer of Code that supports us in searching and processing data.
  • The specifications and technical solutions surrounding the distribution of Freifunk templates of all kinds were discussed, as were public relations materials.
  • A further lecture covered the technical challenges involved in meshnetworks with wired and wireless segments and their solutions.
  • A Workshop was held dealing with offering decentralised services and storage whilst sharing these resources.
  • The Installation of Friendica as an open and decentralised alternative to Facebook and its configuration as an Internal and external service.
  • Last but not least: What is the legal situation? What have we achieved? How do we get predictability in legal decisions? What is the significance of a legal declaration on Freifunk.

Information on the lectures and workshops can be found in the Wiki.

Beyond that we worked on firmware, web Interfaces and written materials, we installed services, created podcasts, talked and, most importantly, barbecued.

We wish everybody in Freifunk a lot of fun and success in transposing and realising the knowledge and ideas gained, and look forward to seeing everyone again at the next Freifunk Community meetings:

This post is also available in: German

10th Wireless Community Weekend 2014 in Berlin

WCW2014Starting Friday May 30 till Sunday June 1, 2014 freifunk.net, c-base and the German wireless network community invites you to the “Freifunk Wireless Community Weekend” at the c-base space station in Berlin. Meet interesting people involved in Wireless Community Networks in other cities and countries.

This year’s main topics will be IPv6, encryption and community services and of course recurring topics like firmware development, new installations, legislation and PR. At the end of the day we’ll have a nice barbecue at the Spree river. All information can be found at our wiki.

Feel free to propose your own topics at the topic’s page on our wiki. The timetable will be created just in time.

If you need accomodation take a look at the accomodation page.

We’re looking forward to meet you in Berlin!

This post is also available in: German

Join us at BattleMesh v7 and Wireless Community Weekend 2014

There are two events for free networks enthusiast comming up in may: BattleMesh v7 in Leipzig and the Wireless Community Weekend 2014 (WCW 2014) in Berlin. Please contribute

BattleMesh v7 in Leipzig

The next ‘Wireless Battle of the Meshes’ will take place from 12nd till 18th of May in Leipzig, Germany. The event aims to bring together people from across Europe to test the performance of different routing protocols for ad-hoc networks, like Babel, B.A.T.M.A.N., and OLSR. This will be improving the testbed conditions for mesh protocols with standardized testing procedures that will be reported after the event for the wireless communities.

If you are a mesh networking enthusiast, community networking activist, or have an interest in mesh networks join us! More informations about the event are gathered at: http://battlemesh.org/

Wireless Community Weekend 2014 (WCW 2014) in Berlin

Starting Friday May 30 till Sunday June 1, 2014 freifunk.net, c-base and the German wireless network community invite you to the “Freifunk Wireless Community Weekend” at the c-base space station in Berlin. Meet interesting people involved in Wireless Community Networks in other cities and countries. You find more information and how to contribute at: http://wiki.freifunk.net/Wireless_Community_Weekend_2014

This post is also available in: German

The Freifunk-API

apiAn API (application programming interface) is a set of protocols, routines and tools that specifies how software connects to other software. Through these ports, information can be provided from one software component to another.

Recently, we have set the course for the further development of our free radio API. So now it is really easy to create a Freifunk map or a list of all Freifunk initiatives in Germany, for example.

We first demerged previous repositories, that already had developed a quite wildly. Thanks to @ratopi, who has taken over this task. The new sectioning in different repositories for core components is as follows:

  • api.freifunk.net: contains the heart of the API, namely the specification and the generator and we may later add documentation.
  • directory.api.freifunk.net: this is from now on the directory, the only real central component of the API
  • common.api.freifunk.net: this repository contains software that is both needed and used by all other modules. For example the collector or updater of the number of nodes.

So far the applications are structured as follows:

  • cmap.api.freifunk.net: the Communitymap, which is generated and maintained from the API data on freifunk.net.
  • feed.api.freifunk.net: this application supplies the feeds specified by API of each community viewer.
  • viewer.api.freifunk.net: the newest addition to the API family is the viewer, which clearly presents the API data in a clearly layouted table.

We will be happy to add new repositories for new applications and ideas. Our goal is to develop stand applications, so we can publish versions independently and coordinate commit-messages. We want to make it easier for new developers to find their way around, and not get lost in a jungle of files and directories.

The next release of the API specs is now on its way.We have started with development and and are completing pending tickets. Progress is already installed in the generator under http://freifunk.net/api-generator.

You can find important information such as the founding date (maybe also the date of the reestablishment) and other important milestones of communities in the section ‚timeline‘. For the historically minded among us, you can find some really interesting information.

We converted the events, so they now contain a URL to an exported calendar. The possibility of different node maps and visualizations as links is also brand new. Further adjustments will follow by and by.

Here you can find a step-by-step manual, how to generate the API file for your local community.

If you have new ideas for the API or would like to contribute something and/or need assistance, you can contact Andi on our Webteam. If you have general questions about the API or otherwise want to help, just contact us!

This post is also available in: German