I've put together a bunch of docs offline and will post them here soon for you guys who want more detail. I've already implemented the handshake protocol in gnucleus. I appreciate all the feedback.

As for the 101 ways to rain on my parade, I also appreciate these concerns because it keeps me on the lookout for potential pitfalls.

Anyways, here's my response to those comments.

1- Agreed, but unless I feel like paying for yet another internet service, I can't get all the groups I want. So, my newsgroups are very effectively censored already.

2- I'm not sure how this rains on my parade. My system will preserve the functionality of multipart files while adding additional protection against censorship.

3- Same as 2

4- My system wont need T3 connections because each user will only have to support the traffic of the newsgroups he subscribes to.

5- This functionality can be implemented in my system as well, I haven't considered this yet, but I'll design it in tonight.

6- Similar to 5, but the message expiration CAN be automatic in my system as well if the users desire. No 3rd party software required.

7- I'm a starving artist and don't want to blow more cash on a service I'm already paying for.

8- there IS a nice collection of files on gnutella! =)

9- I'm not a big fan of *nix zealotry. My win2k machine gives me MUCH less technical problems than my linux machine, so thats what I'll be using for now.


I'll try to post a preliminary protocol doc here within the next week... stay tuned.