Oh so both are called Freenet again? Or is this a new third project? For a while some people were adamant in refering to the original (which still lives but I believe is incompatible?) as Hyphanet. What happened with Locutus? It seemed promising.
They’re two distinct pieces of software created by the same project. The original Freenet dates back to the early 2000s and focused heavily on anonymity. In 2023 it was spun out into its own project and renamed Hyphanet. The two systems are very different and not compatible.
Work on a clean-slate successor started in 2019 under the internal name Locutus. That codebase rethinks the design from the ground up, based on lessons from running the original Freenet for many years and with different tradeoffs.
After the split in 2023, Locutus was renamed back to Freenet. What’s being shown here is that newer Freenet.
There’s a longer history and rationale in the FAQ if you want more detail: https://freenet.org/faq/#what-is-the-projects-history
So I guess this is still Locutus, which is the New FreeNet, related to Original FreeNet (by now rebranded to Hyphanet) in name only.
I think answer to this will be very helpful in understanding the state of the project and how we can contribute.
That said, a lot of progress has been made recently. Stability has improved noticeably even over the past couple of weeks, and most of the remaining issues are about hardening and ergonomics rather than fundamental design problems.
I’m hesitant to give timelines, but my expectation is weeks rather than months before River is something I’d personally feel comfortable recommending for non-technical use. In the meantime, feedback from people trying it, especially around rough edges or failure cases, is very helpful.