P to P, Open Source, business models

[Public]

As I understand it, Gnutella is a P to P protocol whereby there is no central system. There are many implementations of the Gnutella software whereby there are several "competing" versions that are Open Source. Many of the Gnutella versions are by small companies that are dependent on Gnutella. They need cash as we all do, and include spyware to generate income. The main use of the software is for "sharing" music. The established musical industry takes a dim view on this

At this moment P to P is identified with a Napster, a Kazaa, a Gnutella. And everything is done to stop "illegal" use. The problem is twofold. A whole technology is in danger. To me it is obvious that what is needed for businesses in P to P to succeed is to have legitimate uses for the technology. The money will not come from the Gnutella clients but from functionality like a peer server.

My suggestions are the following
* Allow for a closed use of Gnutella. For instance sharing data within a company. (Intel is on record using P-P for that)
* Cooperate on the Gnutella client. Gnutella should be like Linux, a LimeWire, BearShare like RedHat Suse.. When everyone works on the same codebase, the evolution of Gnutella would greatly increase.
* Do not use spyware in a client. The reason is simple, when a client is infested with spyware, the commercial off shoots will not succeed in commercial applications because companies can not be associated with that.
* With cooperation on the client done in a community way, there will be more time=money available for the commercial bits and bobs.
* On the Mandrake forum they are floating the idea of contributing Euro's for continued work on the client... Contributors are more likely to get heard when new functions are requested.... Read there postings.
* Look hard for "legitimate" uses of Gnutella. When Gnutella is widely used for functions that nobody can object to, there is no change to have the technology destroyed by a RIAA or a BUMA/STEMRA.

Thanks
Have fun
Gerard

[BP-7]

Actually I don't really look for MP3's - Gnutella has a lot of legitimate uses - especially since the "Internet bubble" burst. It used to be you could easily find free web servers to host your own files, but now the best are gone. What's left forces tons of pop-ups and other obnoxious ads on you and cuts off sites that uses too much bandwidth. Any popular file becomes increasingly expensive to distribute - even if it's perfectly legal to do so.

I see P2P as a great solution for this. Popular OpenSource, Freeware and ShareWare stuff can all benefit. For example, Linux ISO's are perfectly leagal to distribute but *huge* - how many people can afford to host such stuff on a web server?

Not to mention all the videos and MP3's people make themselves these days. The giant media corps want to control *all* content distribution - their copyright or not. All these people making their own video and flash stuff may really become a threat. The solution, as the media giants see it, is to buy enough laws to make sharing any file impossible.

[volleyball setter! #40]

What people do is their own business. Problem is that a technology ie Gnutella is deemed to be only for "illegal" use.

My point is that there is Gnutella the client and on top of that functionality can be build. Money is made by providing worthwhile functionality. This can have central functionality like in a peer server or, files are distributed and you get the file that is nearest to you (saving on bandwith and increasing speed) within a closed community.

By making the client universal, it is up to the user to utilise the functionality. By spending effort on the server/services that can be provided, the company that does the work is legitimate and out of bounds for a RIAA, BUMA/STEMRA.

When you make clear what good use can be made of the technology by not focussing on a RIAA, you make your point best.

Thanks,
have fun
Gerard

[DJ Warp Shadow]

Sounds good! What can we do to achieve/support this goal? *asking*

To be more specific, how can we build up an effective development community? Is the GDF as is works now an ideal place for protcol improvement, client implementation, new developer support and for learning from other p2p systems? Can we make the new Developer Forum more attractive, find more ideas?

Personally I think a friendly place to meet and a better support/documentaion for programmers new to Gnutella could be a step forward. The current V0.4 documenation does contain only a small part of what modern clients do and possible extensions (e.g. multisegmented doenloads, researches, superpeer, hashs, swarming) are very undocumented or hard to find.

Greets & Aloha, Moak

[randomtoad]

First off. Decide what you want, what is in it for you.

Then when you are committed, decide how you can best achieve what you want. If you want to do certain things alone. Do it alone. When finished, when you want to give it to the community, do so. If you want to work together on things, work together and agree who does what, when.

Keep your focus; and be open what you are in it for,

When you work together, you never get the best hand, the best people, all the resources. So when you can work together with angels and *******s, you are a great TEAM player.

When the current documentation is the thing that holds back. You might want to work on that. When you want to get to a common codebase work on that. But do it like Linux, Publish often, make obvious that something is happening. Make sure that the excitement is there.

I am not sure what GDF means But when you have doubts be clear what is wrong with it. Discuss it AND do not try to make it personal (hard enough).

An other thing; find a pet project that is COMPLETELY legit. That will help to have a lively Gnutella in a year's time.

Thanks,
have fun
Gerard

[tito88]

Hi Gerardm,
the GDF is a mailinglist of some Gnutella client developers (founded by Ex-Clip2), they coordinate client development and discuss new protocoll implementations.

To read online or to subscribe check this thread:
"Simple question on Gnutella"
http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4638

Hope it helps, Moak

[jigwigpig]

Just to illustrate what kind of functionality is similar to what I am talking about, there was this post on /. which leads to

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/bayardo/userv/userv.html

This is what makes money. It saves on bandwith. It provides a service. This is what you can do with Gnutella too I think.

Before a company commits itself to some services, it requires certain functions. This whitepaper is a case in point; it talks about most of them. See what you can learn and make your business succesfull and use Gnutella, cause it is good

And, see to it that there is one GREAT client

Thanks,
have fun
Gerard

[nanna]

That kind of "anarchy" is why you can read this webpage or download your email. Open standards are why the Internet exists today and all those proprietary online services of the 80's have disappeared or adapted.

There are plenty of closed P2P protocols out there. Many are quite good - perhaps better than gnutella, but they're limited to the company that owns them. Most will be dead and gone in a few years time despite whatever techincal merit they may have.

A true P2P protocol must be open and client agnostic just like HTTP, FTP, TCP/IP, SMTP and all the myriad of other protocols the Internet runs on. Anything else is not only self-defeating, but pointless. If you want a yet another proprietary P2P network go and make one, but don't try and exploit gnutella for your own company's personal gain.

[Maytoi]

Thats not true, most clients are from volunteers. Only two companies seems to do Gnutella fulltime; Limewire which is OpenSource and Bearshare which is proprietary (btw both come with spyware).

I agree about the other statements, cooperation and a free Gnutella is the future.

[cute.stuff_8391]

That's pretty the same to gnutella, they mixed Gnutella with FastTrack (supernode) and Guerillia (the gnutella clone whith indirect proxy/relaying traffic) technology. But without any fair&healthy anti-freeloading as FastTrack/eDonkey or any any Gnutella client has... you can leech with every webbrowser, eeeek.