Development Roadmap – July 10, 2018

In the spirit of an update:
Technical Development:
In the last few weeks we have upgraded from operating a single-server demo to a multi-server network with dedicated machines handling independent services like DNS, dReddit and more. We have fixed core problems with the way our network handles monetary policy (upgrading core parts to big-number libraries), and implemented automatic-transaction rebroadcasting both as a layer of defence against censorship attacks and as a better way for us to bleed tokens into the Saito ecosystem over time as usage grows.
In the process, Saito has moved into a sort of “testnet for testnet” where we are using and abusing the network in preparation for a “public” Testnet launch sometime in July or August. At that point Saito will offer DNS persistence, and services like dReddit will continue to persist even if we need to reset our blockchain. We will also be able to issue tokens to users and early-adopters that will circulate safely even in the presence of a transient blockchain.
In the next two or three weeks, as our focus shifts to testing, our in-house dev time will be spent mostly on breaking the network and making sure we have the tools to make upgrades reasonably painless. We will continue to improve the applications we have already built (mailchat3 is a real winner) and we hope to find a developer who can help us implement payment channels so that we can add native Ethereum support to most applications.
Business Development:
On the business side, we are still in the midst of fundraising due to delays in our getting a legal contract written. We expect to have something for our backers to sign shortly though, and look forward to being able to put this behind us.
Our team continues to grow, and we are delighted to share news that we have hired Adrian Sandiford as our new Director of Marketing. Adrian will join Richard, David and Stephen as a member of the core team, where he will take charge of all public messaging and communications work. We are actively looking to hire at least two other skilled developers and/or network engineers. If you are a javascript developer with more experience in web development, the best way to get involved is to tackle a project or take charge of a module. We can find resources to help pay for outsourced module development.
Beyond fundraising and HR, less technical work underway involves IP work on patents and trademarks. In this area, the final draft of our first patent application has been finished and will be submitted shortly, covering several key innovations introduced by Saito and documented in our provisional patent application of last year. We expect to file for a second patent on automatic transaction rebroadcasting shortly. As promised, we will also be issuing a public license with our code on testnet launch. Our intent at the moment is to charge licensing fees to organizations which want to implement Saito mechanisms on non-public blockchains, while having a strong enough defensive patent portfolio to protect developers from being targeted when they choose to build services and applications atop public Saito networks.
What Comes Next:
If you know any Ethereum developers who are interested in making a difference in scaling work, please encourage them to get in touch as we would love to have ETH payment channels running on Saito by the time of our public network launch. This isn’t really technically complicated work, it is just messy as it requires wrangling with things like the Etherscan.io API and we do not have the time to deal with it in-house.
Any other ideas? Please do reach out! Please just remember that we are a small team and quite busy, so it is best if you have an idea of how you can help. We should be in a better position to handle more abstract requests at the end of this month once Adrian is with us full-time and we have more resources to focus on long-term instead of short-term development.
Thanks for reading!