recanman bitejo rewrite and expansion proposal

layout: fr
title: Rewrite and expansion of Bitejo software suite
author: recanman
date: July 29, 2023
amount: 45
milestones:
  - name: Month 1 (Begin rewrite, backend and APIs) (80 hours)
    funds: 10 XMR
    done:
    status: unfinished
  - name: Month 2 (Complete the first draft of the backend and APIs) (80 hours)
    funds: 10 XMR
    done:
    status: unfinished
  - name: Month 3 (Integrate frontend) (80 hours)
    funds: 10 XMR
    done:
    status: unfinished
  - name: Month 4 (Final touches and launch, maintenance for 1 year)
    funds: 15 XMR
    done:
    status: unfinished
payouts:
  - date:
    amount:
  - date:
    amount:
  - date:
    amount:
  - date:
    amount:

I am proposing to rewrite the Bitejo web application suite.

Who

I am recanman, an ambitious self-taught full-stack developer with experience in many languages and fields. I have been involved in the computer science field for nearly a decade. You can contact me at @recanman:agoradesk.com, and there I can provide a PDF with my resume on request. I have a couple free software projects on my GitHub profile.

I have been involved with the Monero community for a little more than six months, and since then, I have learned an abundance about privacy, fungibility, free software, how cryptocurrency works, and much more. I am currently the writer of The Monero Standard, published by LocalMonero.

I have also localized websites in Arabic, including the LocalMonero and AgoraDesk websites.

This is my first CCS proposal, and I am excited to take your feedback on anything that should be changed.

What

Here is a basic description of what I am proposing to do over the next six months:

1. Rewrite the Bitejo web application suite, exposing APIs and increasing the security and privacy.
2. Host the website (For as long as I can, at minimum two years. If at any point I can no longer host the website, I will hand it over to a trusted individual in the Monero community).

Why

Rewrite

The original proposal (see edits) was for a completely new service dedicated to jobs. I was informed of the Bitejo web application suite. Unfortunately, it is written in messy, procedural PHP, and is unstable ("Warning: This code is amateur-level, messy and not fully tested. Some parts should probably be refactored or rewritten from scratch. This is a hobbyist project that was casually under development since late 2018 and released in 2021."). Many parts of Bitejo are unorganized, a big one being authentication, privacy, and security. While the website does not utilize client-side JavaScript, it still needs an email address for management of listings, which can be remade into a central user authentication system. While chats are encrypted with AES-256 properly, the keys that are used (I have confirmed with the owner that the keys are different from the public instance) are stored in the source code, which are one of the many bad practices present in the code. A proper and secure platform needs to exist in order to replace the use of privacy-violating services, and to encourage the use of Monero.

How

I have vast backend experience is in Node.js, so I have decided to propose building this website with the following technologies:

• MySQL (database)
• Express (web server)
• Nunjucks (view renderer)
• Node.js (backend language)
• Redis (caching)
• Monero (currency)

All of the website's code will be completely open source and free software, and I encourage others to contribute to the project.

The website will not need JavaScript enabled on the client to operate in order to preserve the privacy of the users. I will implement encryption where-ever I can and minimize plaintext stored in the database.

At the end, there will be the following services implemented in the Bitejo web application suite:

Rewritten:

1. A marketplace service (Craigslist).
2. A fundraising service (GoFundMe).
3. Digital assets service (Shopify).

There will be a GitHub repository as a mirror to my private Gitea server on https://github.com/recanman/monero.jobs.

Proposal

I propose to work 80 hours each month, equating to 20 hours per week. This ends up with a total of 0.15 XMR per hour, which is around $22.87 USD per hour, using the price of $152.47 USD, calculated based on the exponential 14-day moving average from Yahoo Finance.

According to salary.com, the median software developer hourly wage is $37 USD, which is close to what I am proposing. If the monthly milestone is not met due to a dip in the hours worked per week, the milestone completion will be at the completion of the hours listed for that month.

If I do not complete the website by December 31, 2023, the proposal shall be considered expired, and the funds raised for this proposal can be put back into the Monero General Fund or used to fund other proposals.

Total: 45 XMR