MaidSafe consists of two key parts. The network and the client applications.

The SAFE (Secure Access for Everyone) network can be best described as a fully distributed data management service. This network manages static and dynamic data as well as communications. Importantly the data held is either :

In either case the network cannot decrypt any of the data on the network. This can be thought of as a decentralized server that performs the tasks of today's httpd, ssh, scp, ftp, smtp, pop3, imap etc. servers.

The SAFE network is made up of unused hard drive space, CPU and communications capabilities of commodity computers. These computers are likely owned by the very users of the system, but need not be limited to that. Each computer will effectively mine for credits which can be traded for many other goods and services. These credits are called safecoin.

SAFE network client applications access this network via some innovative steps including:

Client applications can access, store, mutate and communicate on the network. The clients allow people to anonymously join the network and cannot prevent people joining. Data is presented to clients as virtual drives mounted on their machines, application data, internal to applications, communication data as well as dynamic data that is manipulated via client applications depending on the programming methods employed.

Examples of client apps are; cloud storage, encrypted messaging, web sites, crypto wallets, document processing of any data provided by any program, distributed databases, research sharing of documents, research and ideas with IPR protection if required, document signing, contract signing, decentralized co-operative groups or companies, trading mechanisms and many others. The clients can access every Internet service known today and introduce many services currently not possible with a centralised architecture.

These clients, when accessing the network, will ensure that users never type another password to access any further services. The client contains many cryptographically secured key pairs and can use these automatically sign requests for session management or membership of any network service. Therefore, a website with membership can present a join button and merely clicking that would sign an authority and allow access in the future. Digital voting, aggregated news, knowledge transfer of even very secret information is now all possible, and this is just the beginning!

How would you like to create the next Dropbox, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Candy Crush, or secure email service? The SAFE network offers every developer the opportunity to create applications without any infrastructure costs and without any barrier to entry.

If you have found your way onto this page it probably means that you are a developer looking to contribute to the underlying SAFE project codebase. Thank you for coming, together we can all help to make the Internet a free place once more. Initially we welcome any bug fixes and patches and in time these contributions will turn into new features and further enhancements. Our list of pivotal tracker tasks can be found here.

Improvements to the codebase will be rewarded with safecoin, the currency of the SAFE network. The amount of safecoins awarded will initially be determined by polling the MaidSafe developer mailing list and payments will be allocated from the MaidSafe Foundation. 5% of all safe coins have been set aside for this purpose.

The SAFE network core libraries are written exclusively in C++. Before contributing please read our code standards page, which is by our own admission, a blatant copy and alteration of the Google guide. It is important that we stipulate and enforce these standards in order that the code base remains manageable and consistent.

Please also be sure to observe the Yum Yum rule, this is critically important!

All our libraries can be found in GitHub and there is plenty of support available, either through our mailing list or via our community run forum. You can also access some MaidSafe technical white papers within the wiki of each project.

In addition to the the core team that exists at our HQ in Troon, we are currently in the process of setting up decentralized core developer pods world-wide. This dissemination of knowledge is an important step in making this project stronger and more robust. Our initial focus has been on San Francisco and continental Europe (more through circumstance than planning), however, we are keen that this movement accelerates throughout the world and would love to hear from anyone who is interested in setting up a pod in their local area. Our hope is that in time these pods will become self sustaining. To find out more vist it the meetup website.