The gnutella network is not likely to be 'down' for some years to come.

There is no single central resource to go 'down', although if you have some specific client that only uses some specific hostcache then it could be down.

In this case, you could research where to find more hostcaches and see if you can manually enter them into your program, or else download a different client.

Ultimately there will most likely be people using gnutella who you can connect to for a few years at least.

If the internet works, you can get a gnutella connection.

If someone is firewalling you (ISP, system administrator) but you believe you have the right to share data, then you can try a client that lets you change the connection parameters, like <A HREF="http://opensourcep2p.sf.net/">this one based on gnucleus</A>.
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