Vinnie goes ballistic! Doesn't get his way
 

Vinnie is on the war path with the other developers of Gnutella clients, makes threats, flips the finger and the best part...

Jumps up and down and stomps his feet cause he isn't getting his way!

Just like the little kid he is.

"If something isn't done, then I will assume its OK to use the same tactics with respect to dropping messages, retry intervals, servant bias, and propaganda that I have seen elsewhere."

Control, control, control

"A middle finger to certain unnamed people who put "Spyware-free" in their product comparison, preying on the misguided negative attention and making things worse for me. Don't worry fellas, your time is coming, I've got something real nice headed your way."

My way or the highway

"I would like to extend the middle finger to bodhi, and those other morons who claim that BearShare sends encrypted "spy packets" even after repeated explanations."

The GOD and dictator of Gnutella has spoken, we must obey!

Don't say anything he doesn't like or off with your heads!

He's lost control of his little world, watch out! He's on the loose!

This guy needs mental help! (and ideas what to do with him?)

Ignoramus
 

Great, another jackass.

Here's the whole post for those who are wondering:

---

> Each time my Bearshare client connects to a new servent, it sends
off
> a query (even if I have an empty temp directory). The TTL of this
> packet will vary, and so will the query payload, but it is always
141
> bytes. What is going on here? And what is the format/meaning of
> this query criteria?

This is a proprietary message that BearShare uses for determining the
version number, newer versions, and measurement of the FreePeers
horizon in the Statistics page.

Due to historical reasons, the TTL on these messages in rather
limited and therefore the FreePeers horizon has never been
particularly accurate (it is always low).

You can identify these types of encoded queries by noting that the
high bit of each character in the string is set to 1. Proper handling
of these messages is to skip the comparison of the query keywords
against local files, and broadcast or expire the message as usuall
(decrementing the TTL by one of course).

You may also see Query Hits descriptors that contain similarly
encoded data. These Query Hits descriptors can be identified by file
names which have the high bit set in all characters of the null
terminated string. For these messages, you should route them just
like a regular query hits message. If your servent supports passive
monitoring of search results, do not perform the usual comparison of
outstanding queries against these query hits, as the data does not
refer to a requestable file.

The information contained in these messages is proprietary and
confidential.

There have been many reactons to this proprietary technique. One is
that it "breaks" the Gnutella protocol, or is not compliant with the
protocol. However, nothing in the protocol specifies that queries
have to be for files, or that search results must contain files.
The "protocol" only defines the format of the messages so that
applications may be interperable. I designed the encoding scheme so
that it is easy to identify and deal with.

Some developers and users have raised objections to these messages,
claiming that they 'fragment the network' or some other junk.
However, we must recognize that in order for Gnutella to grow we must
embrace creative implementations and thinking "outside of the box".

In fact, LimeWire active blocks and drops these proprietary messages
that BearShare sends out, even in the latest version (1.4). This
happens despite the fact that the TTLs are low, and the over-
utilization problem that was present in December has long since been
eradicated. LimeWire drops these queries in all cases, even if the
TTL is low, according to recent tests.

Fortunately, Gnutella was designed for exactly this type of attack,
and the filtering of BearShare binary messages by the LimeWire
servent has in no way reduced the effectiveness or usefulness of the
messages (partly due to BearShare's market dominance).

Let me remind all of the developers in the group that so far I have
refrained from 'retaliatory' features because I believe it is not in
the best interests of the Gnutella network.

This having been said, there are several issues which have been
bothering me lately, all related to the LimeWire servent:

- Low timeout on download retries in LimeWire servent (currently 20
seconds)

Although at first glance, it seems like a nice cheesy way to improve
the download success rate, it is bad overall for the Gnutella
network. LimeWire blocks BearShare's special messages because they
think they are doing whats best for the network. Should a new
BearShare now block uploads to LimeWire because the low retry timeout
is detrimental to modem users?

Despite me having raised this issue as a problem a long time ago, the
latest version of LimeWire (1.4b) has not corrected this defect. The
GDF has also been completely ineffective in becoming a standards body
for saying with the proper timeout SHOULD be.

Do I need to take matters into my own hands again, or can you
knuckleheads get your collective acts together?

- Dropping of proprietary messages by the LimeWire servent

In order for the network to grow in rich technology and innovation,
this type of behavior is simply unacceptable. Although the bandwidth
issues were resolved rather quickly by me, LimeWire has seen fit to
not only take technical steps to harm the BearShare servent, but also
political steps by labeling them as "Garbage Queries" in the release
notes.

Should the next version of BearShare automatically strip the LimeWire
metadata proposal information from query hits before passing them on?

From http://www.limewire.com/future.htm#openprotocol
>any company or person can use [Gnutella] it to
>send or respond to queries

Apparently, any company except BearShare, based on the behavior of
the LimeWire 1.4b servent.

- "Spyware-free" label in the Feature Comparison about the LimeWire
servent

Do we really want to go there, gentlemen? We all know who is visiting
my forum. Preying on the ignorance of users, spreading
misinformation, and flaunting the negative attention BearShare has
received from my attempts to build a company from ground zero without
outside investors, is in poor taste. I have restrained myself from
reacting as I normally would, out of respect for my peers.

I would be willing to bet I could do a far better job of critizing
other servents in poor taste than anyone else could. Should I
continue to show restraint or should I invest some time in this
direction?

---

> :
> : The information contained in these messages is proprietary and
> : confidential.
>
> It's not very reasonable to expect others to route your proprietary
> and confidential information without some sort of prior agreement.

Sure it is. Since there are commercial interests, it is very
important to remain impartial with respect to traffic. Or else we
would end up with a software war.

See my example about stripping meta-data from search results before
passing it on - would you want that? I never agreed to meta-data so
why should I route it.

> True enough. But any plan depending on others serving your peculiar
> interests without some sort of prior cooperative arrangement is
liable
> to fail on that dependency.

The only dependency is on proper functioning and handling of messages
as per the Gnutella protocol. I think this is the baseline agreement -
everything else like proprietary messages or custom features is fair
game.

However, flooding the network is not a good idea either, which was an
early problem with BearShare. There are two issues, one is
overutilization of bandwidth, and the other is developing proprietary
features.

> : [20 second retry timeout] is bad overall for the Gnutella network.
>
> Can you make this case, please?

Yes. I had been getting reports from many users that claimed LimeWire
servents were making frequent requests for files. I didn't believe
it, so I turned on upload reports and sure enough, the number of
average LimeWire requests over a 24 hour time period more than
quadrupled from its previous values!

So what would be the logical response on my part? I would change my
retry interval to 10 seconds, then BearShare would have a better
chance.

If EVERYONE did this, we would quickly end up with no timeout in a
big game of one-upsmanship. I refrained from playing with the timeout
because it is counter productive. LimeWire got away with it because
their market share is so small, but if I were to reduce my timout
value in BearShare then there would be a significant increase in the
amount of collective traffic. This is known as 'hammering', and if
you are familiar with FTP servers you know that if you hammer you
usually get your IP banned.

> : GDF has also been completely ineffective in becoming a standards
body
> : for saying with the proper timeout SHOULD be.
>
> My opinion: Barring some significant unforseen practical problem
> resulting from underspecification, it is inappropriate for the GDF
to
> act to specify features of the download protocol

The retry interval isn't part of the download protocol, and because
of the "tragedy of the commons" effect where all servent developers
would eventually reduce their retry interval, it is necessary in this
case to have a consensus, and make sure everyone sticks with it, to
prevent a greedy company from lowering their retry interval in an
attempt to make downloads in their servent more successful than
others.

> : Should I continue to show restraint ...?
>
> Please continue to show restraint. I think that your admirable
> energy, if unrestrained, might scorch a lot of productive earth:-)

Maybe you misunderstood me. I've been patiently waiting for these
issues to get resolved and my patience is wearing thin.

If something isn't done, then I will assume its OK to use the same
tactics with respect to dropping messages, retry intervals, servant
bias, and propaganda that I have seen elsewhere.

That didn't help
 

OK, so...

That didn't make it any better, still sounds like you arn't getting your way and you are ready to do something nasty to the network, or your users.

Why don't you try counting to 30 before you **** everyone off?

Vinnie, set up a router.limewire.com 6346 thing at your site, make your client log into that at startup and then it will be Bearshare Net, you can dictate and control it all!

Please, please!

Re: That didn't help
 

>That didn't make it any better, still sounds like you arn't getting >your way and you are ready to do something nasty to the >network, or your users.

Not at all - I have not done anything nasty to the network nor do I plan on it in the future. What I meant by my post is that there are other servents on the network which have questionable practices, and if these practices are not corrected, then I *might* modify BearShare to work the same way as other servents.

What are the questionable practices? Dropping other servents messages, hammering other servents with short download retry times, and spreading propaganda about other servents. Yes, other people have written software that does this, and engaged in these activities.

All I am implying is that if other people can do it, why shouldn't I? I have refrained from it because it is bad for the network.

>Why don't you try counting to 30 before you **** everyone off?

Yeah I would have to count to like about 3 million for that to work.

>Vinnie, set up a router.limewire.com 6346 thing at your site,
>make your client log into that at startup and then it will be
>Bearshare Net, you can dictate and control it all!

I can control it all without my own host cache - this is not the point. I'm not trying to dictate or control anything.

When LimeWire politely asked me to take router.limewire.com out of BearShare's default list of host caches because they were overloaded with traffic, I did so.

When they asked me to put it back because they upgraded their servent, I did so.

I have even implemented special behaviors in BearShare specifically designed to HELP their crawler get around the network faster when it talks to BearShare servents, as well as provide more useful information (like whether or not the user is behind a firewall).

You don't hear them talking about this though, all you hear is people criticizing me.

It is very aggravating to me when I hear completely unjustifiable complaints about secret messages, dictatorship, or controlling the network.

I published the format of my extensions to the Query Hits portion of the Gnutella protocol, and I have helped other developers implement it.

I even shipped BearShare with the ability to recognize and give proper credit to the search results of more than TEN other servents, long before they implemented the feature, so they would have a live network to test their implementation of Open Protocol extensions (my invention). Do I get credit for that?

When I implemented the BUSY flag in the search results (among other enhancements) I consulted with some of the other developers, sought their input, and listened to their advice! And I am being called a dictator who wants to control everything?

When I added the other features to search results, I did it in an obvious way and I published the results in the GDF. Is this the sign of an arrogant *******? Or someone who is trying to improve the network?

But hey, I have a short fuse and I'm only human.

I feel like I am being stepped on, and walked all over.

I feel like there are a bunch of ungrateful *******s coming to MY forum and using it to badmouth BearShare and spread lies and rumors for NO GOOD REASON.

Do I post inflammatory messages? Hell yeah! Am I sometimes rude? Surely. Do you want to flame me personally for this behavior? Go right ahead! I've even opened up a special forum for it in the new BearShare.Net! I don't have any problem with personal attacks. I mean, if I'm willing to dish it out I should be able to take it. Its a rough crowd!

HOWEVER, I have a serious problem when false accusations and rumor mongering is giving BearShare a black eye with NO JUSTIFIABLE EVIDENCE, especially considering that my actions (mentioned above) in no way correlate with these bogus claims.

Re: Re: That didn't help
 

Ok...

You are a pyschotic, egomaniacal ******* and your software cannot be trusted.

Now, with that said, why don't we start being constructive.

Instead of trying to get commercial interest program developers to change their ways (spyware, secret packets, wars between $$ interested parties)...

What if each one of you devotes just a little energy each day to promoting Open Source clients, you would be amazed at what could be done!

With good PR and Open Source, you won't have to worry about commercial interests trying to take over Gnutella, or the spyware / built in browser / adware / proprietary packets stuff that is out there. Even LimeWire will have to recover it's investment somehow someday, so you will see adware or some other thing happen there.

Gnutella is a Open Protocol, only Open Source will keep it that way.

These clients are getting good, really good. There's no reason for anyone to run a proprietary client anymore.

The problem with most Open Source clients is that they arn't getting the PR they need. People need to post more about them in other Forums, let people know where to download them, and more programmers need to be aware they exist.

Promotion is always lacking in Open Source projects and it's a shame. It's not that hard for people to do.

So please spend a few minutes promoting a Open Source client. Visit some forums you haven't ever been to. Write to editors of big sites like CNet and ZD net. Write reviews and submit them. Put up your own web pages pointing to OS client's web sites. Put up a review site, put up two. Use a free web host site. The more the better.

The other way you can help is if you know ANY programming at all. Even simple improvements will go far in improving a client. If you don't know something, ask! You can fix up a routine, but maybe you don't know how to attach it to the GUI. Not a problem, just post it and someone else will pick it up and install it. This happens all the time!

You want a feature? Add it!

Open Source works when many people put in just a little effort each. That's the way to a open free Gnutella network! It's fun!

So, can I get some promises to dedicate just a little time over the next few months?

Thanks!

(feel free to post this message on other boards)

Dear Bodhi
 

You need to funnel that energy into something more positive, like a BearShare watchdog group. You can bad mouth it all the way to the Great Wall of China and it isn't going to get you anywhere.

blah
 

Bodhi ur an *******

open source sucks

vinnie and bearshare are getting **** done for Gnet, and thats all that matters...

Re: blah
 

Hallo Kutulus:

are you not the same Kutulus that wants to be a moderator on bearshare.net?

If so, do you think this is an appropriate attitude for a moderator-to-be? Why are you throwing insults all the way? You have insulted me in the past regardless of my tries to calm down both sides. And if you keep this kind of 'social skill' in the future, I see very black for the moderation i bearshare.net.

Will you not tone down, and let us talk a little more constructive?

Greetings anyway.........

Kutulus
 

Kutulus I appreciate the effort but I think there will always be those who are jealous, those who are angry and throw a tantrum because they can't read or decipher BearShare's versioning message, and those who can't write a servent as popular as BearShare.

I've been on vacation for a couple days now and it gave me time to think.

With the new forum, those inappropriate messages can be neatly consolidated into the appropriately labeled forums, and hopefully very little will need to be deleted or edited.

Therefore, I think that in the future the best response is no response, or one of the 'standard posts'.

Responding to those inappropriate messages with the same language or tone, has not been particularly effective and therefore is counter-productive.

Re: Censoring
 

The problem is you did your own thinking, same thoughts over and over and should have been bouncing this off of some people with common sense and experience.
Censoring doesn't work in any form. You need to read about what has happened on forums and mail lists for more than 30 years now, it doesn't work.
It's been tried and doesn't work.
Censorship doesn't work.
Don't bother cause it doesn't work.
Someone responds to a post and then another and then you see it and 'move' the original, are you going to move them all? Will people just forget those areas and stick to the area where you move everything, thus making that forum uncensored like it should be in the first place? Then you can move messages over from there to a new area hoping to control that and so on.
Will people leave for other boards you can't control where they get real information, not just the corporate line? Will this build trust?
Did you think about that? Not to be insulting but you seem to have a problem with consulting other people before you go public with something you think is great, then it blows up in your face and admitting you were wrong is a hard thing (for anyone).
You are on a losing proposition, cut your losses and move on, you are wasting your time trying to control this.
Listen to the people, they might just have a point.