Mailpile Crowdfunding Success

[Michel Bauwens]

Via Stacco Troncoso:

"Good news all around: with more than two weeks to go on their funding campaign, Mailpile has exceeded its funding goal for the development of an alternative web-mail application with enhanced encryption and safety features.

Led by an Icelandic team of open source veterans and privacy advocates, Mailpile aims to provide a secure, open source, encrypted email service. The team has set a January 2014 date for an “Alpha” release.

The funding and ongoing development is community based.  “When we aren't sure what features to work on next or need to make some other major decision, we will seek input from the Mailpile Community. To this end, we will set up a forum dedicated to this conversation. After all, you are the ones funding the work and your voices should be heard. [...]

No ads, no spying. Just powerful software backed by a community of people who care.”

In light of the Snowden leaks and the subsequent shutting down of US based encrypted email services such as Lavabit and Silent Circle, we think that the Icelandic based Mailpile represents not only a credible option for the safeguarding of our privacy, but an excellent opportunity to protest by migration to ethical software platforms more akin to P2P values.  It is also worth noting that Marco Fioretti has proposed embedding Mailpile within a suite of easily accessible, decentralised online applications (email, social media, collaborative documents, data storage, etc.).

Turning money into code

Now that the crowdfunding goal has been met, the team explains their needs and how they will use any extra funding obtained until the end of the campaign.

Needs:

“Over the next few months, we need to sort out a lot of things to do with the infrastructure of the project:

• We need a community forum to continue interacting with our backers

• We need automated tests for our code-base

• We need to define APIs for plug-ins and interacting with external apps

• We need to further develop our theme architecture

• We need to solidify the overall design of the system, so it is clear where and how people can pitch in

These are all prerequisites for being able to accept outside help - or to be able to turn money into manpower into useful code. So these are our top priorities for the Alpha release in January.”

Allocation of extra funds:

“Having extra money gives us a few options:

1. Raise our salaries

2. Work longer, extend the lifetime of the project beyond 1 year

3. Hire additional people

4. Hire contractors for specific tasks

5. Set money aside for a "rainy day" or unexpected events

6. Attend conferences, hackathons and meetups in other countries

Which of these makes sense, depends a lot on how the project develops and how much money we end up with at the end of the campaign. At the moment we are leaning towards the last three - contractors, a "rainy day" fund, and growing our community in person”

Eben Moglen of Freedom box is one of the funders for the project. The crowdfunding campaign continues until the 10th of September 2013"