Gnutella needs protection before its too late
 

I am not a programmer but I think it would be wise for others to start to brainstorm
some ideas to enchance security on the network before the dreaded RIAA takes our
rights and ISPs away.
Limewire told me encryption would be hard to implement. Perhaps there are other
solutions.

I just worry that with supernodes around the corner and all the big network
improvements Gnutella is gonna explode in popularity and gain the size of Fast Track.
Of course its great that it will grow but thats gonna attract the RIAAs attention. I
wouldnt be suprised if they take Limewire to court and drain our beloved Limewire
team of their assets and jobs. Even if the RIAA cant win in the courts they can bankrupt
all these start up companies developing Gnutella clients.

Maybe the hacking community can implements some slick ideas.

Re: Gnutella needs protection before its too late
 

Not hard...

all client must use encryption than...

Morgwen

Hi Sweepicker, Morgwen,

hmm encryption is for sure a good idea! I find it hard to implement or to fit any needs: protect sharer and superpeers, protect traffic, fast and small traffic overhead, gurantee optimizing algorithms (query caches e.g.) still work and everything on a totally decentral system (which gnutella is). I guess FastTrack with a slightly centralized system has it much easier, with key management etc.

Does some concepts for gnutella or filesharing system allready exist, any ideas or URLs (at the_GDF)?

Encryption isnt a panacea thats one of the P2P myths and a dangerous on at that. Look at the fasttrack network they have encryption yet the RIAA was still able to figure out all it needed to sue them. Either way who would stop the riaa from downloading and modifying an open source program to track users.

The reasons why gnutella hasnt been sued is that its open which is the biggest reason, no log-ons or user names, it has many more uses than just file sharing, and search is really not that much different than any search engine out there.

Gnutella is alot like the web so if the RIAA wants to shut it down they will have to do it like they do on the web and go after indivdual users which will be a PR nightmare and the cost too high. Which it will be very unlikely they will do that. They will most likely try other ways like DRM and etc.

Encryption is NOT dangerous. Fasttrack is sued because it's not working completley decentral, not because it's using a kind of encrypted key exchange for a proprietary authorization mechanizm.


Encryption makes no sense in a peer to peer system, at least as long as download partners are not anonymous.... or as long as content is not anonymous! Look at Freenet, a user has no idea what is on his/her harddisk.
Similar to anonymous Freenet, but much much simpler, is swarming technology. Thousands have a small part of a file without knowing it.... so content is made (slightly) anonymous. Isn't it?

More ideas for Gnutella's future?

The thing that worries me is the fact that I can see a day soon where the RIAA or one of the big labels will use the full legal resources at their disposal to locate one individual who's sharing files and make an example of them.

Once that has been done, then a president can be set to go after others.

As others have quite rightly pointed out, Gnutella's main strength is the sheer number of servants out there. However, just as Metallica did with Napster in identifying a whole list of offending users, expect the same to happen with Gnutella.

Let's face it, regardless of whether encryption is used or not, it is easy enough to identify a remote servant hosting illegal files, either by viewing the web page or by starting a download.

Once the IP address has been obtained, a quick visit to ARIN will reveal the owner/ISP of the IP. Since most ISP's have either within their T&C or AUP that you should not partake in trading of illegal items using their network, it wouldn't be too difficult to have the connection discontinued or, even worse, for subsequent legal action to take place if so desired.

Whilst files are shared in their entirety, regardless of the method used to transmit the files, I personally feel that the risk remains that the RIAA etc will soon set the cross-hairs on both the Gnutella clients and the users sharing the files.

Rachel

Rachel, I completly agree.
We need more ideas...

[QUOTE]Originally posted by RachelHeath
[B]The thing that worries me is the fact that I can see a day soon where the RIAA or one of the big labels will use the full legal resources at their disposal to locate one individual who's sharing files and make an example of them.

Once that has been done, then a president can be set to go after others.
[\b][\QUOTE]

First that is very very unlikely to happen do to how gnutella works even if you scan it for a week you wont find every single "offender." If any action would come it would be in stop and desist e-mails or at an extreeme get a user internet service cut i doubt they would sue.

The RIAA wont make an example because the media would eat them alive and cause so much bad publicity the RIAA would be hated even more. Considering its the holiday season it would be a bad idea to **** off the consumers.


[QUOTE][b]
As others have quite rightly pointed out, Gnutella's main strength is the sheer number of servants out there. However, just as Metallica did with Napster in identifying a whole list of offending users, expect the same to happen with Gnutella.
[\b][\QUOTE]

Gnutella is not napster its much better. On napster you can easily search an entire server easily. On gnutella you cant systematically search every inch of it like you could on napster. There are no log-ons so you cant just kick users off easily like what napster did during the Metallica thing.

But your isp just doesnt give your info out to everyone who askes nicely. The other side has to prove it and even then some isps like verizon still wont give them user info. The only isp that has taken any kind of action on a regular basis is @home and maybe a few others like AT&T and Qwest occasionally.

Try to design a P2P network thats fast, stable, and only gives info out to everyone except the riaa. Its impossible there cant be any kind of security like mentioned here without servely limiting users options and the fact that most security measures would hurt gnutella legally and bring more attention from people like the RIAA the benifits wouldnt be anymore than just bragging rights and a slower, limted network.

I can see where people are worried and etc. and thats perfectly understandable after napster but gnutella isnt napster, no prolonged action has been taken yet and until there is i dont think that security needs to be a major issue. Plus unlike all the other file sharing programs gnutella can be used for alot more than just P2P making it a extreemely hard for someone like the RIAA to attack it legally because they would lose.

umm...
 

Very optimistic and also ignoring reality, some ISPs and universities block Gnutella allready!
When RIAA has shutdown other peer to peer system, what makes you belive that they stop and do not attack gnutella? This is big business with a high money flow, think creative... if lawyers do not suceed, RIAA could try to abuse the network, flood the net with fakes (read Harry Potter floods on Slashdot) or DoS or.... is Gnutella really that strong?

You seem to look very conservative/reserved on Gnutella, what are your ideas to improve Gnutella?

Sephiroth,

A simple method is to view someone's web page. A host of goodies there.

A second method would be to write an application using the gnutella protocol that issues a search for a given artists name and start seeing what is returned. If the same IP address starts to appear a number of times then they've got their target.

As I said previously, all they would have to do is successfully sue one individual. Once they have done that, then the doors are wide open. That in itself might be enough to stop a large number of people from sharing. Once that happens, the topology becomes top-heavy as everyone tries to download from servants outside the RIAA's or WIPO's
jurisdiction.

I never said they'd do anything today, tomorrow or even this month. Don't forget, the RIAA already tried to sneak in legislation into a recent bill that would give them carte blanche to hack into peoples computers. If they are willing to got to that level, I do not think for an instant that the RIAA will be to worried about 'public opinion' if it comes to taking someone to court. Besides, what have they got to loose? The RIAA is paid for by the recording industry. I for one cannot see the general public suddenly boycotting all record releases etc simply because they got heavy handed and successfully sued someone...

True, but the RIAA will no doubt go in mob-handed. I doubt if the ISP will argue too much, after all, if they do, then there is the very real chance that they can be implicated along with the user. One ISP in the UK (Demon Internet) already lost a legal case about a news article stored on the USENET servers. A president for legal obligation there has already been set. Granted that was in the UK, but ISP's may not be as protective over their users as you would like to think they are.

As you already pointed out, @home and AT&T have both taken action against other users. They are arguably two of the largest Broadband ISP's in the USA (Road Runner being a third). Since Road Runner is itself owned by a media conglomerate, I wouldn't expect them to look kindly on users who have been positively identified as sharing illegal files.

True, GNet is not Napster, but as I said previously, Metallica ID'd over 330,000 users who were sharing 5 or more Metallica songs. They went after Napster itself because that was the 'main artery' for the file sharing system. GNet is a different ball game all together. Essentially each servant is a potential Napster when it comes to copyright evasion.

To say that the RIAA will not pursue a US based user sharing several GB of copyrighted material is completely off the base. They can and probably will. After all, there is no real difference in sharing nGB of illegal MP3's as there is copying DVD's and distributing them elsewhere. The only argument that could possibly be used is one of 'zero profit motive'. However, in the eyes of the law, copyright theft is copyright theft, regardless of the intention or not to profit from it.

Don't think either that public opinion will be against them. People said that about the Napster case and look what happened there. A very large proportion of the population does not, or ever will use GNet or any other part of P2P sharing.

Besides, what have the RIAA to loose? They are funded by the recording industry, not by the public.

Currently, the RIAA are looking at other P2P file sharing applications. Take a look at this except from an RIAA press release:

This sound something like GNet? I think it does. Granted the technology may be different, but the philosophy is the same. Whilst it is true that the GNet is not controlled by anyone since it's an open format, there is still enough damage that can be done legally to hurt it in one way or another. Look at Napster. It's not a shadow of it's former self, nor will it ever be. They took on the giants and lost, big time...

What's even more worrying are the list of plaintiffs in the case: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., Columbia Pictures Indus-tries, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., New Line Cinema Corporation, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P., Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Universal City Studios, Inc., Arista Records, Inc., Atlantic Recording Corporation, Atlantic Rhino Ventures Inc. D/B/A Rhino Entertainment Company, Bad Boy Records, Capitol Records, Inc., Elektra Entertainment Group Inc., Hollywood Records, Inc., Interscope Records, Laface Records, London-Sire Records Inc., Motown Record Company, L.P., The RCA Records Label, A Unit Of BMG Music D/B/A BMG Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment Inc., UMG Recordings, Inc., Virgin Records America, Inc., Walt Disney Records, Warner Bros. Records Inc., WEA International Inc., WEA Latina Inc., and Zomba Recording Corporation

Anyone of these organizations alone makes for a scary legal competition. Them all combined makes for a verifiable rotweiller. Also, notice where I highighted WB? Since they are already fighting this case, expect them to fight the next - and Road Runner users will be directly in view. The won't need to ask the ISP for user details since they ARE the ISP!

Finally, in the US alone, the RIAA represents an industry worth $15billion. With that much money, I would not expect them to take this lying down...

Rachel

Oh yes the blocking done by universities. Do you also know that you can get around that by using something like Socks2http and use a proxy.. Its a pain to get working but it works. Isps/universities blocking is a problem for all of P2P and isnt specific to just gnutella...

Why i think that the riaa wont succeed. One because unlike all the other networks out there gnutella is truely decentralized because its open, has many more uses than just file sharing and do to the protocol it is impossible to shut down.

Your right the RIAA does have deep pockets which is why they are pushing for things like DRM and SMDI to be standard and manadatory on everything.

As for this comment "RIAA could try to abuse the network, flood the net with fakes (read Harry Potter floods on Slashdot) or DoS or.... is Gnutella really that strong?"

Replace try to with is doing. The RIAA has been doing that for a while now flooding gnutella, abusing the network and etc. The RIAA has been monitoring gnutella for months. Gnutella is still here and as the protcol gets better i firmly believe that it will be able to withstand because its holding up now..

Right now i think the best way to improve gnutella is to improve the speed and capacity of the network with things like supernodes. Really until things like that are added which are going to in the near future its kinda pointless for me to think up ideas when others have allready sloved them. Metadata should include more than just mp3s.

Packethound is software already in use at the University of Missouri (if not others).

It examines the contents of each packet and already has rules to identify and block Gnutella data. Once it see's a single packet with a pattern that matches GNet data, the connection to the remote computer is immediately dropped.

Rachel

Digital Music Laws (US Based)
 

No Electronic Theft Law (NET Act)

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

Rachel

It's a big problem. Let's imagine 1000 students have been blocked, only a few computer geeks manage to set up a working tunneling (and might get caught). The majority, let's say 900 student are off or will move to an alternative P2P system. With every university or ISP the RIAA convinces/forces to block, gnutella will loose users, bandwith and files.
However I got your point, you think Gnutella is safe and has more umportant problems, okay.

Personally I would be interest in ideas how to make Gnutella stronger and remove possible weak spots. Anyone has ideas?

I know this may sound slightly silly, but I've heard that it can work reasonably well elsewhere...

How about each client, when asked to upload a file, also get's a chance if it decides (for whatever reason, say for example, it's never uploaded to this IP address before) to upload a message that has to be OK'd before the upload commences.

This message could be something along the lines of 'I agree that I do not work for any law enforcement agency, nor for trade organizations such as the WIPO, RIAA (etc etc) and that I agree to indemnify both the owner or owners of the remote computer currently identified as having IP address x.x.x.x from any legal action as a direct or indirection consequence of this or any subsequent download download that I, or the organization I represent, perform. I further agree that I am solely responsible for ensuring that any and all copyright infringements are not violated by performing this or subsequent downloads and that I/we do not hold the owner of the remote computer responsible in any way, shape manner or form.' (Yada, yada, yada)

Long winded? Yes. Turgid? Certainly. Protective? Possibly...

Perhaps something like this would then put the onus on the uploader to ensure that no copyright infringement takes place. Since the uploader is significantly harder to ID than the sharer, this might make the job of the RIAA harder to perform...

Just an idea is all. Perhaps my head is somewhat in cloud cuckoo land here, but you never know...

Rachel

Anyway you look at it whoever pays the bills can do what they want. And chances are they will or are block many of the other file shairng programs too and not just gnutella. Whenever i see someone complaining about blocking its very common that they have tried 3-4 other programs too with no success.

If gnutella developers did do some measure to circumvent blocking all thats going to happen is that they are going to block gnutella differently like with things like packethound which was mentioned. It'd work for a while but wouldnt be a long term solution.

The disclaimer idea is something that indivdual programs would have to do most have ones kinda similar too it not that extreeme though. I've seen similar disclaimers like that on xxx sites.

This is probably a good reason why gnutella should try to be more than just file sharing which probably wont happen for a while.

Hi Sephiroth, also Bearshare moderators have different opinions about Gnutella and RIAA attacks?
Btw, it seems this discusison found an end: RIAA has shutdown the first Gnutella client, Xolox. Read more http://www.zeropaid.com/news/article.../11292001a.php

Legal Notice
 

I am not as good with words as Rachel, but here are my two cents:

Have the legal notice as part of the Gnutella License agreement (have servants do this during install?). The agreement would absolve all servant's users from responsibility saying something like:
"By using the Gnutella network, you agree to the following - You may only download file(s) that you are legally entitled to own. The Gnutella network is here to share files for educational purposes, and for the legal transfer of information. If you are downloading a file, you are stating that you legally own a licence for the product, you know the software is freeware.... bla bla bla".

My servant could be set up to varify that you have "Pre-Agreed" to the generic disclaimer before I send a file to you. I think this "blanket" disclaimer would be easier than having a disclaimer pop up every time I want to download a file from another server.... just say "I agree" once and be done with it.

Furthermore, this will also keep abuse down. Because if every user sent a disclamer, it won't be long before some smart a** starts sending 'check out my porn site' notices when you try to download a file.

In general, I think the discaimer idea is a super idea though... just need to figure out the bugs???

Can't speak for other servants, but I do know Gnotella already has this.

You are absolutly right, this feature does have the potential to be used for the wrong reasons. I had not thought of that side. Good point. I suppose if the message were 'built-in' and gave the user no chance to modify it then that might work.

Rachel

Sounds promising for install time.

Does anyone knows a lawyer with multi national experience? Btw I have seen some of the old MP3 sites have a similar disclaimer, saying every file is for private archive and available for legal owner of the original only... you have to agree to download... also everyone working for RIAA etc is forbidden to enter or use the site in any way. I could remember because the funny part is, they refer to an DMCA article, which made this kind of disclaimer possible...

I would like to point out the fact that if it is legal that a national agency or whatever blocks a file sharing program that is used worldwide.

Ivan
"In the dark we make a brighter light"

Hmm, the RIAA did now allready crack down Kazaa in the Netherlands (FastTrack clone)... and as a result the dutch coder crew of the Gnutella client Xolox did discontinue because of possible law suits. It doesn't matter if the RIAA's behaviour is legal... the fact is there is a big threat over the heads of developers.

Would you take the risk of taking it against RIAA/NMPA, a bunch of lawyers and lots of money behind? I would be interested what do the current developers think... do they feel threatened, did they allready contact their lawyers or setting up any countermeasures? PS: Sephiroth you still think Gnutella needs no protection?

Making up a disclaimer is kinda pointless since many programs hire lawyers to do that for them anyways.

Moak it depends on what you talk about "protection" if your talking about ideas like encryption and blocking countermeasures which would fuel a fire for a lawsuit against gnutella then yes im against it. If gnutella was as at risk as you think it is then why hasnt it allready been shut down.

Gnutella unlike every other P2P network is truly decentralized and an open network. Unlike other programs you cannot sue one or a few programs to get the network shut down. If the RIAA wants to attack gnutella they will have to go after indivdual users themselves like they go after web pages on the web. The RIAA behaviour does have to be legal because if it isnt then they will fail and become even more hated.

The "threat" of the RIAA, there money and there lawyers were allready well apparent to everyone well before when most of the programs now were released. Almost all the developers out there had to have known about them and were willing to take that risk or else they wouldnt have made their program.

moak the RIAA didnt "crackdown" on kazaa the IFPI did. Thats an different organization thats similar to the riaa but its not the riaa.

FreeTella
 

Here are some ideas I posted over at bearshare.net:

I think a blend of gnutella and (the idea behind) freenet would be best. Users would be able to share files on their harddrive, unlike freenet, and would also be required to have at least 100mb for encrypted files that would be shared. To any host searching/downloading they would be unable to tell if the file was one that was encypted and the user was unaware was even on the drive or one that the user was sharing. All network traffic should be encrypted. When encrypted/mirrored files are stored there would also be a separate file the user would have with the file name, meta data, and key. This would be searchable. So clients would also be creating lists of available files, meta data and keys for searches.

Some fraction of uploads should be rerouted. All of this would make it impossible for anyone to every say that a particular person was sharing a particular file.

Please see the following discussions for more:

http://bearshare.net/forum/showthread.php?threadid=4266

http://bearshare.net/forum/showthread.php?threadid=4938

Probably because it can't be 'shut down'.

Gnutella is not a product but an open protocol. If I remember correctly, FastTrack was a closed set of tightly written API's controlled by one company and licensed out to others - hence the ability for the enforcement community to zero in on it.

The fact that XoloX have announced that it has now effectively closed it's doors possibly means that they have been advised by their legal team that, being Danish, they may be targeted next, and so rather than avoid a very costly legal showdown which they probably can ill afford, they have decided to shut up shop and call it a day.

Who knows what the effect of this might be? Who knows if other companies with Gnutella clients will shrug their collective shoulders and say 'there by the grace of God go I' and carry on regardless, feeling that since they are based in the US that they don't have much to worry about. Equally though a move such as XoloX's has the potential to send shock waves throughout the community. If other clients decide to go away then the protocol will be weakened by a lack of supported software.

Rachel

Hi Sephiroth,
thanks for answering... I see we have a completly different point of view. I will try to show my point, which does not mean I want to convince you, really! I did spent some time to finish this posting (my english is still bad - thx Babelfish).

A disclaimer is not pointless in many countries, it will protect me from local lawsuits, for example if I live in sweden and a application has a disclaimer that forbids illegal use, but provides a legal use, you are not resposible for misuse. In some countries it might be necessary to add some best-use-reminder... e.g. you have to tell north american people not to dry a cat in the microwave or that fresh coffee is hot, if you don't you'll loose millions. So it might be tricky/difficult to find a good _local_ disclaimer and it might be necesarry to remind users to share only legal files... plz ask a local lawyer.

Ideas like encryption would fuel a fire for a lawsuit? How did you come to this conclusion? It makes no difference if your program is less or more secure. In my humble opinion RIAA (or whoever is the executive) will attack the weakest system and the most "attractive" threat in their eyes. We had a similar discussion about adding metadata to Gnutella... it could attract RIAA, in both cases I see no connection or a higher threat. My Counterthesis: If a p2p system is very strong it will be harder to attack... take a look on Freenet: strong encryption + totaly anonymous content + highly decentral, I see no lawsuits against them yet. Freenet might be the last pawn standing.... or FreeTella?

You ask why Gnutella hasn't shutdown? It wasn't the weakest and it wasn't the most attractive one. They take the centralized first (Napster), take the partly centralized next (FastTrack, eDonkey?), then the unprotected decentralized (Gnutella, Swarmcast, MojoNation), then who's left (Guerillia, Freenet). I think Gnutella is in risk now.

Yeah man, that's what I'm telling.... Gnutella told to be safe against a bunch of lawyers (Gnutelliums). Now things might have changed?! RIAA does not need to attack every single user... they can try to knock out the developers. I think it's threat to every Gnutella developer or P2P company. XoloX would have been the first target because it is the most famous Gnutella client + the dutch court has allready shown it has no technical understanding (they didn't care if Kazaa is decentral/central or proprietary/open protocoll). I can understand that the dutch XoloX team discontinued XoloX.
Sure we have many different clients still, a highly decentralized network and a open protocoll... I wouldn't feel safe as developer of a gnutella client these days.
Damn I hope you're right and Gnutella community is strong! My intention is to help Gnutella and analyze what's going on.

Right, actually it was Buma/Stemra. An association that represents Dutch composers, songwriters and music publishers. The IFPI (The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) is a organisation representing the international recording industry... and brought up the case... which is just another friend/synonym for NMPA or RIAA (The Recording Industry Association of America) = the "pushing force behind".

Greets and good night, Moak

PS: I like the ideas of "FreeTella" (2 postings above) very much! Cool ideas, thx for the links, Unregistered! :)

I didnt say a disclaimer idea itself was pointless i said making one up was since the indivdual programs do it allready for their program. . Its not really a new idea and its allready in place. Many of the disclaimers posted here had alot of effort in them which is nice to people taking an interest in improving gnutella but its allready in place.

Metadata can be added to gnutella without the problem of a lawsuit if it provides metadata on everything and not on just mp3 or just movie files and etc. Again lets look at fasttrack they had a "secure" network and in the end did that help them ward off the riaa and others like it? No.

What security plan can be added to gnutella which the riaa wont just go get the source of an open-source program which has it, modified it and go on their way? There isnt one. The best plan for gnutella like i said before would be to developer alternative uses other than just file sharing and to improve the network to be able to handle that and support millions of users.

Moak i dont think you really understand gnutella from other networks. Even if the RIAA shuts down a gnutella program all that really does is stop development that program will still be on the network and people will still continue to use it. What if the source was released then that program would mutate into new programs/verisons. In the end it wouldnt accomplish anything. People would still be trading music files, the riaa would be hated more, and there will more programs popping up.

And whats this freenet. Freenet is really before its time and it has its weaknesses also. Take for instance to download off freenet you have to search a key index. These key indexes are targets they can be filtered, they can be shut down. Freenet isnt invincible as many people believe. I get their idea which was that there will be too many file indexes to shut them all down but right now there arent that many.

The RIAA has always gone after the largest, most popular program not the weakest. If they went after the weakest ones then all the very little programs with very little user bases would have been sued and shut down.

True! That's what I ment with they take the weakest and most attractive. So this will deny your thesis, that any kind of protection will endanger Gnutella.
I wonder that you do not believe in Freenet ideas. However the "Freetella" ideas describe more guerillia countermeassures like rerouting of small parts of traffic (would be possible with swarming, okay I repeat my self, sorry) and more ideas could be envolved.... think positive/constructive. :)

Nice and friendly today? But you brought up a not so far mentioned point! Mutated Gnutella programs/verisons, be honest: This means Gnutella must not only be a open protocoll, the client must be open source too and the main developers must be strongly protected agains lawsuits. So this also means a new kind of thinking inside Gnutella... open source and more cooperative behaviour... awesome!!!.... since months I'm looking forward to that day (what about Vinnie?).
In open source servants I see indeed one of the _best_ strength of Gnutella (bye bye proprietary clients)... thx for mentioning it!
In that context I hope the developers community finds an agreement about anti freeloading - or together with more upcoming multisegmented download servants Gnutella will kill itself IMHO.

Downloading may be illegal, making it available is not.
 

When a file can be downloaded, it is imho not illegal to have data somewhere where it can be downloaded from. It is illegal to download when you do not have the right.

When You have music available, that you bought, and you use the net to download it somewhere else, to listen to, I do expect that to be fair use.

When somebody is charged with illegal actions, it must be proven to be illegal. Listening to your music on a different location can hardly be called illegal. The proof of illegality is in your own mouth and/or for organisations to prove.. ;)

Not every program on gnutella has to be open source. The protocol has to but not the programs. Commerical program are a major part of gnutella, provide the best programs, the best improvments and most importantly competition between the programs.

With open source programs your not going to get the best people working on gnutella for nothing. And the people who do arent going to work on gnutella full time. There wont be any real competition because theres no incentive to be the best program. No competition means that the user will have less options and less features.

Plus a open-scource network wouldnt be able to compete with other comerical networks for the same reasons. The 100% open source program idea is a pipedream. Having some open source programs are important but all of them dont have to be. If all of the programs on gnutella went open source then i think gnutella will either die or fall so far back in competition with other networks that it will lose a ton of users that it wouldnt be worth using anymore.

he changes his opinion in every post.....

Hey Sephiroth...

you should talk with people who see the reality and not with Vinnie...

Than you don´t write such a crap anymore...

Morgwen

Open Source ..
 

Open Source has its place.
There are several layers to improving Gnutella. When the standard functions are Open Source, everyone would benefit by having optimal code. Everyone is the winner. The softwar needs to be modular so that if one company has a commercial offering, that there are hooks to provide extra services, services like crypto, authentication, XML for a particular type of information, preferring NEARBY copies in stead of far away copies..

Point is you make money on services provided not on services that everybody requires. When one Gnutella client is inefficient, everyone suffers. When the basic code is open and everyone contributes to modular code, service / servers are sold to legitimate users. Because serious money can be saved by having efficient P-P functionality (Intel is one company who understands that..)

One issue might be the License; it would need to be a license that allows for commercial use. (Your point) Mozilla with their three licensing scheme is one example of how this can be done

Thanks,
have fun
Gerard

funny
 

Yo dude, Sephiroth, completly ignoring reality now?

The best Gnutella clients are _not_ commercial, even I wonder which programs you're talking about: Most famous are Xolox, Phex, Limewire, Gnotella yet. For example Bearshare and Swapnut (the only proprietary clients) play a minor role (and with a lack of a serious business models they are financed by spyware plus some adds to pay the website AFAIK). No unknown commercial programs did push forward or develop Gnutella. To tell you the truth: the origin of Gnutella is uncommercial (Justin@Nullsoft) and all later developers did envolve the idea of Gnutella together. Gnutelliums names 15 different clients, you'll find more on sourceforge.

Actually the most energy came from a free developers community: for example Ex-Clip2 with their documentation or their Reflector (the first supernode), Limewire (OpenSource) does a huge amount of research, Phex has implemented some new features (OpenSource too), the_GDF together did envolve many ideas (slow but they do constantly) and especially the individuals of Xolox which did adapted some of FastTrack/eDonkey ideas (Xolox is no commercial product too).

It seems you completly deny the role of open source for Gnutella or IT development in general, what about Linux, GNU, BSD, apache, squid, samba, Gnome, KDE, etc? Some meaningless side effects that were build on commmercial products? Denying reality? You brought up the idea of open source for the survive of Gnutella, now you don't like it? I also wonder how should a commercial gnutella developer survive... currently there isn't one company with a working Gnutella business model! Isn't a Gnutella company an imagination, just a dream? It's ridiculous saying a company is responsible for Gnutellas development, commercial proprietary programs are a minor part of Gnutella development since the beginning.

Without a free developer community Gnutella would be _far_ behind! Actually Gnutella is far behind other P2P technologies like FastTrack and eDonkey... the most important thing is a strong and cooperative developer community now (no more propaganda, no more aggresive marketing).

Reducing this post to one sentence:
Let's have some fun and push gnutella forward :)

I didnt say all open source is bad i even said that its important to have it but it shouldnt be the only type of program. I posted it thinking more along the lines of the program itself being open/closed source and didnt think about the protocol.

The only person to make any sense at all is gerardm. Which i agree with in that it is important to have coorporation and a kind of community effort to develop the critical standard services. But it shouldnt be like that for every aspect of program which is that moak impiled which i didnt get into this in depth before becuase felt i didnt have too. Looks like i was wrong.. So im not going to respond to the majority of moaks reply nor morgwens assumptions or anything about his "reality."

Now on nullsoft releaseing gnutella to be an open network. Thats not how it happened. Nullsoft's effort to create gnutella was commerical. Nullsoft had no intention of releaseing gnutella open protocol. In fact nullsoft didnt release it at all, someone on the inside leaked it out. They only did that because AOL was going to shut it down and gnutella would have never seen the light of day. Their only choice was either leak it or no gnutella ever.

running out of arguments? strange Nullsoft theory.

OSS and cooperative development
 

Well, I read there is some agreement

Yes there is a need for cooperation. This must be on a shared code basis. Standard functions can be the best. If one group decides that a certain function is to be proprietary, and it fits in in the way of plugins/module or whatever fine :D When another group decides that the "universal" client needs that function everywhere, it only needs a OS version that connects in the same way.

Point is licensing, copyright.

You guys are no lawyers. Neither am I. But to get to the same codebase for the client, you need to think about it.

Open Source authors have currently the right to post the same code under a different license as well. Given the huge amount of clients there is plenty code to start with.

If you want your Gnutella business to survive, make your business a legitimate business. Think technology, Think on how you make money with P-P. Work that in your commercial offerings. You will find that the client will also need work to enable that. :D So you will NOT stop developping the client. Everyone (interested in Gnutella) will win. And a RIAA/et al will have a problem with you as a target because
* The user is responsible in analogy with a car a gun.
* You as a business aim to make money on a legitimate offering
* Improvements that are clearly to enhance the "illegal" use, are done by a "anonymous" Open Source Community. AND those improvement can be in the form of a plugin/module whatever..

Thanks,
have fun
Gerard:) :) :p

Yep, I hope we find a cooperative developer community. :)
Please speak up if you have some ideas to protect Gnutella!

OT: Sephiroth, if you come with helpfull ideas I will be glad to see you again. Meanwhile please no more Bearshare VIP propaganda here.

COMMUNITY
 

Well, decide what you want. if you want a COMMUNITY. You do not tell people to ... whatever. You want to be inclusive. Together you are part of the solution :D

Be constructive, think of which client has the best prospects to be the all inclusive client. Look for Bearshare functionality that is cool to include.

TOGETHER means that you bridge distances not create new ones..

:p

Thanks,
have fun
Gerard

Many words without sense...

Morgwen

Re: COMMUNITY
 

:)

Morgwen

Re: COMMUNITY
 

No trolls! Please follow the P2P community some time, before inviting and including more well known trolls as Sephiroth, Kultus or telling about cooperation with Vinnie! Theese guys have a long history for unfriendly behaviour, a non-cooperation-politics and slowing down everything that is not Bearshare. Everyone is invited, everyone with helpfull ideas.

I vote for cooperation too. If every Gnutella client wants to make his own way then we will begin to have compatibility problems, and a serious risk of fragmentation of the Gnutella Network.

Ivan
"In the dark we make a brighter light"