how was eth able to launch b4 maid, despite its short comeings eth did launch....
Completely different projects. Ethereum is a blockchain on which you can run scripts that gets executed by miners so to speak. They are working on data storage as well (Swarm) but that one isn't launched.
Maidsafe is focused on storing data on a P2P-network but next to that they also fix several other things like 100% privacy on the system. A decentralized naming system (DNS) without a blockchain. A way to log in to a P2P-network without a server, which is weird as you normally log in to a server somewhere. Next to storing data they also built a messaging system as well. And they allow "dynamic data". So normally a forum like Bitcointalk uses servers where data is stored and you post and edit data. On SAFE it's done on a decentralized system without servers.
So the full Ethereum (as promised) would be: MIST (GUI), Whisper (internal messages) and Swarm (data storage). And we're quite some months (at least) away from that.
The Full Maidsafe would be: The Launcher (GUI), SAFE Beaker browser (surfing websites), Vaults (running network from home). We're also some months away from that
But it's a weird comparison. Although I have to say that Maidsafe has Alpha 1 live with a Launcher and demo-app running on Linux, Windows and OSX. We are waiting for "The Launcher" to be implemented in the Beaker Browser. On the other hand we're waiting for the Vaults we can run from home again. So in the coming tests we probably see something like:
The Vault - for people that want to join the network and help with storage and provide bandwidth.
The SAFE Beaker Browser - to connect to the network and browse sites, upload and download data etc.
The DNS, Messaging, account creation, datastorage, website publishing are already working for months now. We are waiting for the next steps. Since a few weeks they have extra devs working for them. Quite a dedicated team working more than the normal 40 hours per week.
https://github.com/orgs/maidsafe/peopleGreat times are coming, but I think we''ll have to wait to 2017 for the real firework. They new routing called "Disjoint Groups" is implemented. They are doing tests and optimizations right now.
