How did we not tell the truth about spyware? I'm telling you that I built all of the installers. I included all of the spyware that we've ever added to the program. The only thing that was ever not explicitly mentioned in the installer with it's own panel was Cydoor (although it was mentioned in the license agreement). Users knew pretty quickly that something like Cydoor was installed when they ran the program and saw the ads.

Now, we install TopMoxie and Cydoor, and niether are opt-out. There's no lying involved anywhere along the line, no matter how you cut it.

On the clustering issue, I really don't think we should even get into the host caches. LimeWire spent a lot of money to maintain these servers, both for hardware and bandwidth, and they were publicly available for over a year. We did not have to do this. We spent a lot of $$ to allow anyone experimenting with a Gnutella servant to easily connect to the network.

The clustering issue has nothing to do with the UltraPeer model. It simply has to do with the fact that, at any given TTL, if you're connected to mostly UltraPeers on a given path, you will reach 50-500 times as many other computers as you would otherwise reach, simply because each UltraPeer has, in theory, 50-500 leaves (currently up to 80, more in the future). Here's an UltraPeer diagram for anyone unfamiliar with the concept:

On the horizon issue, I wasn't saying that a given horizon was 50-500 nodes, I was saying that the horizon with UltraPeers is 50-500 times greater than without UltraPeers. The horizon is in the thousands with either model. So, preferencing UltraPeers is just a means of trying to offer a better network to the users of the network, specifically about 50-500 "better".

In our view, this isn't a matter of fair. It's a matter of creating technology that works well. Anyone who implements UltraPeers will also be preferences in UltraPeer connections (although please note that other connections are still allowed). It's also not a matter of who "wins." None of the other major client developers has expressed any concern with our preferencing. Why? Because they know that all they have to do is implement the feature, and then they too will become a part of a network that works 50-500 times better. If we didn't preference UltraPeers, we'd be talking about a network that works maybe 10-50 times better. That's a big difference. I really just don't get it. All of the UltraPeer specifications are published in detail with the hope and intention that others will implement it, because it makes the network better if they do. That's it. Selfish advantage? These things are not at all an issue of "we win, you lose" type thinking. That's really the beauty of an open network. If you introduce features that improve it, EVERYBODY WINS! Xolox, Bearshare, Swapper, Toadnod, everybody. Talk about "holding back features" is just ridiculous. That's like LimeWire holding back UltraPeers out of some sort of protest until we get our way on some random issue. It just doesn't make sense.

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