Tirodem on Nostr: (A "bit" of FOSS builder introspection : taking a look back and sharing is fueling me ...
(A "bit" of FOSS builder introspection : taking a look back and sharing is fueling me with positive energy, making health issues taking their leave for a bit.)
Our project, be-BOP (npub16l9…u4ha) is going a bit slower for a moment, as we had to accept a more classical IT job, partial time, to make up for the lack of funds (FOSS, no tracking, no service, you know the drill, it's not what VCs want).
Still, I'm really glad of our last months job, even last weeks :
- we improved the nostr-bot behavior, and the whole nostr implementation on be-BOP (you can know have a full smpt-free eshop, npub only)
- we implemented on-chain nodeless payment with no address reuse (be-BOP makes its own ZPUB derivation to generate a unique on-chain payment address and will check the transaction's confirmations on any mempool, public or private, you setted in the UI), allowing to have a full-nodeless self-custodial eshop on both on-chain and lightning (with previous Phoenix Server integration), making it works on 4.20€ VPS
- we implemented the (optional and modular) agewall for regulated activities
- we improved peerfunding challenge gauge (self-hosted, crowdfunding-like features), making some fix and adding some useful monitoring tools for owners
- products can now have variations (like colors and size for a tee), and with impact on price (we're working on the same thing for stock, for each product variation, that'll open to AirBnB-like booking in the end)
- while introducting SEO optimizations, we also implemented a "SEO Cloack" option, to say "hell no" to SEO crawler bots and stay in the shadows (sadly crawlers listen less and less to this, but... 🤷♂️)
- for hybrids BTC/fiat shops (to make adoption easier), after Sum Up, Cash and Bank Transfer, we introduced Paypal, and Stripe (allowing to enable Apple Pay, GiroPay, iDeal, SoFort, AliPay, Twint and more, a lot of specific payments that are nearly mandatory in some countries)
- while it's not finished, we still made progress of the Point of Sale touchscreen for restaurant waiter/waitress, allowing to use be-BOP on a phone or tablet to easily take orders on tables
- we added italian, spanish (El Salvador specific) and dutch langages support
- we improved back-office experience with order labeling, sales reporting, nomad Point of Sale on international (with seller IP overwrite)
- the docker-compose, initially made for dev, it now working on production, allowing to host be-BOP (e-shop), a S3 Object Storage (Minio) and a MongoDB on the same VPS, to be fully self-hosted
- and thanks to our last PoC (not on Github yes, still local), we can go from a naked debian 12 to an open be-BOP with a free dynv6 domain, SSL certificate, running Phoenix Server, interface to fill your ZPub, allowing you to install and up your be-BOP, publish your first product and cash-in online in Lightning or on-chain in a self-custodial way in less than 15 minutes, without technical skill (except connecting through SSH and pasting a curl command).
New pilots are spawning here and here, BTC meet-up in France, new shops in Democratic Republic of Congo through, some other are coming really soon, and local team are checking for deploying be-BOP in Senegal and other countries.
While my teammates made presentation of be-BOP at Plan-B (Lugano, CH) these last few days, I'll be at B-Only (Annecy, FR), then Adopting Bitcoin for workshops (San Salvador, SV), then CryptoXR (Auxerre, FR).
Lot said we were crazy to try to build a FOSS end-to-end solution from scratch (not based on Prestashop, Wordpress, BTCPayServer & co), pluginless (full standalone, nop paywall), managing the sales (online and retail point of sale IRL), the website, the legal and accounting compliance while introducing Nostr, having privacy in mind, respecting users data and having a password-less for customer policy, while providing way of working with your node natively, or working nodeless without custodial third-party.
This, especially with an daily operational team of 3 (1 dev, 1 tech lead, 1 CPO / QA), for the pure IT focus (Lionel, Léo, I don't forget you 🤜🤛).
It's been 21 months, it works better and better, it does more and more, number of people using it or planning to use it is growing, and now people are making it theirs and deploy it for others in their neighborhood.
Sky is not the limit (money and time are), but I can't wait to see how far we can go, despite the odds.
Let's go back to work, and thanks again to friends, supports, alpha users, beta pilots, curious, enthusiasts, and even to critics and haters !
Our project, be-BOP (npub16l9…u4ha) is going a bit slower for a moment, as we had to accept a more classical IT job, partial time, to make up for the lack of funds (FOSS, no tracking, no service, you know the drill, it's not what VCs want).
Still, I'm really glad of our last months job, even last weeks :
- we improved the nostr-bot behavior, and the whole nostr implementation on be-BOP (you can know have a full smpt-free eshop, npub only)
- we implemented on-chain nodeless payment with no address reuse (be-BOP makes its own ZPUB derivation to generate a unique on-chain payment address and will check the transaction's confirmations on any mempool, public or private, you setted in the UI), allowing to have a full-nodeless self-custodial eshop on both on-chain and lightning (with previous Phoenix Server integration), making it works on 4.20€ VPS
- we implemented the (optional and modular) agewall for regulated activities
- we improved peerfunding challenge gauge (self-hosted, crowdfunding-like features), making some fix and adding some useful monitoring tools for owners
- products can now have variations (like colors and size for a tee), and with impact on price (we're working on the same thing for stock, for each product variation, that'll open to AirBnB-like booking in the end)
- while introducting SEO optimizations, we also implemented a "SEO Cloack" option, to say "hell no" to SEO crawler bots and stay in the shadows (sadly crawlers listen less and less to this, but... 🤷♂️)
- for hybrids BTC/fiat shops (to make adoption easier), after Sum Up, Cash and Bank Transfer, we introduced Paypal, and Stripe (allowing to enable Apple Pay, GiroPay, iDeal, SoFort, AliPay, Twint and more, a lot of specific payments that are nearly mandatory in some countries)
- while it's not finished, we still made progress of the Point of Sale touchscreen for restaurant waiter/waitress, allowing to use be-BOP on a phone or tablet to easily take orders on tables
- we added italian, spanish (El Salvador specific) and dutch langages support
- we improved back-office experience with order labeling, sales reporting, nomad Point of Sale on international (with seller IP overwrite)
- the docker-compose, initially made for dev, it now working on production, allowing to host be-BOP (e-shop), a S3 Object Storage (Minio) and a MongoDB on the same VPS, to be fully self-hosted
- and thanks to our last PoC (not on Github yes, still local), we can go from a naked debian 12 to an open be-BOP with a free dynv6 domain, SSL certificate, running Phoenix Server, interface to fill your ZPub, allowing you to install and up your be-BOP, publish your first product and cash-in online in Lightning or on-chain in a self-custodial way in less than 15 minutes, without technical skill (except connecting through SSH and pasting a curl command).
New pilots are spawning here and here, BTC meet-up in France, new shops in Democratic Republic of Congo through, some other are coming really soon, and local team are checking for deploying be-BOP in Senegal and other countries.
While my teammates made presentation of be-BOP at Plan-B (Lugano, CH) these last few days, I'll be at B-Only (Annecy, FR), then Adopting Bitcoin for workshops (San Salvador, SV), then CryptoXR (Auxerre, FR).
Lot said we were crazy to try to build a FOSS end-to-end solution from scratch (not based on Prestashop, Wordpress, BTCPayServer & co), pluginless (full standalone, nop paywall), managing the sales (online and retail point of sale IRL), the website, the legal and accounting compliance while introducing Nostr, having privacy in mind, respecting users data and having a password-less for customer policy, while providing way of working with your node natively, or working nodeless without custodial third-party.
This, especially with an daily operational team of 3 (1 dev, 1 tech lead, 1 CPO / QA), for the pure IT focus (Lionel, Léo, I don't forget you 🤜🤛).
It's been 21 months, it works better and better, it does more and more, number of people using it or planning to use it is growing, and now people are making it theirs and deploy it for others in their neighborhood.
Sky is not the limit (money and time are), but I can't wait to see how far we can go, despite the odds.
Let's go back to work, and thanks again to friends, supports, alpha users, beta pilots, curious, enthusiasts, and even to critics and haters !