You don't _need_ to, each peer can run its own gateway on localhost. Gateway servers are useful if you're on a computer where you can't install anything.
> I don't think it uses transparent encryption
I'm not sure what you mean by that, but if it means you need to manually encrypt things before storing it in tahoe-lafs, you're wrong. The whole point of Tahoe-LAFS is to push your files to it, and it will automatically encrypt, erasure-encode and distribute it to all nodes in the swarm you're in. All you need to care about are URIs returned by Tahoe-LAFS, and which contain all you need to use files (no need for extra password or keys, in fact they're contained in the URIs)
> there isn't a global namespace
Tahoe-LAFS swarms are defined by their introducers, the central piece that ties all storage nodes and potential clients together, kind of like a bittorrent tracker. There are no namespaces because swarms are not globally defined (although a node can take part in multiple swarms, this is completely invisible from Tahoe-LAFS users. Exactly like bittorrent).
My proposition was to build a world-level swarm, where anybody could register and participate in the swarm. If you wonder about the reliability of a central introducer, there is work in the pipes for creating decentralized introducers.
> You need to run special gateway servers
You don't _need_ to, each peer can run its own gateway on localhost. Gateway servers are useful if you're on a computer where you can't install anything.
> I don't think it uses transparent encryption
I'm not sure what you mean by that, but if it means you need to manually encrypt things before storing it in tahoe-lafs, you're wrong. The whole point of Tahoe-LAFS is to push your files to it, and it will automatically encrypt, erasure-encode and distribute it to all nodes in the swarm you're in. All you need to care about are URIs returned by Tahoe-LAFS, and which contain all you need to use files (no need for extra password or keys, in fact they're contained in the URIs)
> there isn't a global namespace
Tahoe-LAFS swarms are defined by their introducers, the central piece that ties all storage nodes and potential clients together, kind of like a bittorrent tracker. There are no namespaces because swarms are not globally defined (although a node can take part in multiple swarms, this is completely invisible from Tahoe-LAFS users. Exactly like bittorrent). My proposition was to build a world-level swarm, where anybody could register and participate in the swarm. If you wonder about the reliability of a central introducer, there is work in the pipes for creating decentralized introducers.