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A good example of a decentralized p2p network is FastTrack; you'll find FastTrack in some of the newer p2p software like Morpheus and Kazza. FastTrack extends what the Gnutella developers have been trying to do.

1. It incorporates SuperNodes automatically. A SuperNode is a computer with the capacity to host serial other clients. Which solves the weakest-link problem with the Gnutella network; an example would be a user with a 56k connection having to relay all PING/PONG/QUERY messages for its section of the network. It also solves the problem of slow searches.

2. It uses a hashing scheme to identify files, this allows for the software to positively identify identical files for simultaneous downloads.
3. It's not file specific. Users could share anything. Or course he network is rampant with copyrighted software, pornographic material and mp3's. But at least it's not designed to do that - it's just used for that.

The central problem with FastTrack isn't the technology but in how's it's marketed. FastTrack license its technology to be marked by third party developers, these third partly developers market as the next napster. To manage there user base they have established a login system which breaks the decentralized nature of the network.

Thankfully the gnutella scene has been working on incorporating these features into the gnutella network. Namely the flagship gnutella companies, BearShare and Limewire.

Freenet IMO is broken except for the most fanatic of freedom fighters. The central problem with Freenet is its speed, which I believe is inherently broken. When a user begins a transfer of a file over the Freenet network it is copied to every node (space abiding) along the path. This is to enforce redundancy, and is central to the anonymous nature of the Freenet network as it allows users to be unaware of what they are storing; it also has a weakest link problem in that a hop from the source might be very slow. In theory if a file is popular enough it will always be close, however we have yet to see that happen.

The other problem with Freenet is that it is un-searchable; users are required to KNOW what they are looking for. I don't deem this is a death blow as other services could get around this, an indexing service for example

Some links that you might find helpful:
FastTrack
BearShare
Limewire
Gnutella Developer Forum @ Yahoo
MusicCity's Morpheus
Freenet

-Jon

Mac OS X, on UFS filesystems, stores various metadata in an AppleDouble file named ._filename, which is, for something like an mp3 that's been touched in the Finder, less than 1kB. I've had people d/l these from me over LimeWire, completely oblivious to the file size.

Read the report yourself because it is funny, but here is brief coverage in the Washington Post.

And for P2P pleasure...
Gnutella clients...
http://www.bearshare.com/
http://www.limewire.com/
Not based on Gnutella protocol...
http://www.aimster.com/
http://www.edonkey2000.com/
Or just go to CNET's downloads and select from many P2P flavors :)

No client-side Java on Windows you say? What about the 3+ million people who have downloaded LimeWire, a Java-based Gnutella client? Every Windows installer contains a full copy of the JRE.

From the article:

What if I said the best thing that could happen to all of us is a complete backoff of all the bundling beyond what's specified in the W3C definition of the Web. Take Flash out. Take Java out...

Are we sure that we're just talking about the web here? The JRE gives the ability to run both applets in browser and normal Java apps... and it's not like there's a shortage of those

LimeWire is a cross platform gnutella interface that lets you serch for audio or video or programs or images or documents....they create groups where to look for each type of file speeding up searches dramatically compared to regular gnutella. real slick interface and it works GREAT on Linux.

napster who??

if I could swap MP3's like the original Napster.

LimeWire might seem a little like the old napster, but its actually much better/different. Its gnutella, and its cooler than napster. Which isn't saying much, because with shit like ".nap" napster isn't too cool.

___

I think we can look to Napster to learn about how the business model for music distribution works when you're working with the music industry. Napster was an important force because of it's user base when it emerged, the music industry wanted it both ways. They wanted to be part of a popular site, and they wanted the retarded level of control with their imaginary "secure" music distribution systems that they guaranteed Napster became so assy that the reason they bought it was removed.

The only model that made sense for Napster was the one that was initially discussed. The music industry allows a subscription based service which is "all you can download." Now we're stuck with some SDMI still born .NAP file scheme and bertlesmann has succeeded in creating the user bases necessary for 5 other programs to be viable.

In any case, here's some links to what I use these days:

The best Gnutella client: LimeWire
eDonkey
Audio Galaxy

fialar

dont matter, havent used Napster in about 6 months, been using Limewire... much better Gnutella client (than Bearshare)... last night there were 41 terrabytes of info on the network...

as for the RIAA... sorry, I dont buy new anymore... "what's this a Metallica CD at the pawnshop for $3.00".

Last year (while using Napster) I BOUGHT 50 NEW CDs...this year... 3

_______________________

If you have the connection to sustain a connect, you can find pretty much ANY mp3 you want on Gnutella. (For hosts, connect to *Surprise* gnutellahosts.com:6346)

I'm currently running a Win32 box for gaming, so I use both LimeWire and BearShare, although BearShare has been a touch flaky lately. Not sure why.

---

Many people (many slashdotters included) seem to discount the possbility of using Java for real cross-platform desktop apps... I wouldn't be so quick to do so, however. Look at apps like LimeWire, Sun's Forte Java IDE, and the number of sourceforge projects done in Java (though admittedly many of these aren't desktop apps). Hardware is cheap right now, eliminating Java's biggest drawback as a language (speed). Many people are now learning programming with Java (like I did), and it has many appeals as a language, cross-platform ability being only one of them. Java's a desktop contender, and will only grow as such.

Now if only Sun would actually open Java's source...

LimeWire is a really cool interface to Gnutella! Try it! There are clients for win32, mac, linux, solaris and others!

Bearshare is a program that installs Onflow on your computer. Use Gnotella or Limewire instead.
__________________

>Gnutella is a lousy protocol.
>It has some serious scalability problems.

Yep. That's what the naysayers were spouting a year ago, when there were 1000 hosts on the network. Now, there are over 20,000 hosts on the network (according to Limewire Hostcount), and guess what? The network hasn't collapsed.

There will be a saturation point, no doubt. But we haven't hit it yet.

There is a very active Gnutella Developer Forum where all the true Gnutella developers from all the major clients have been working to improve the protocol and network for months. They have made great progress and will continue to.

Gnutella was a simple protocol and idea with staying power for the long term. There will be more power and surprises in store.

The problem I see is not whether the protocol itself can scale, we are seeing numerous "tweaks" that will allow this ( Clip2's Reflector and Bearshare.net's forthcoming 3.0.0 "Defender" release) What I see as the problem is the splintering and added features being incorporated by the different Gnutella Clients: Gnotella has added "Improved bitrate scanning", BearShare and Limewire's Firewall Detection, as well as other "extraneous" features, that add information to the gnutella packets. How long will it be before these clients cause sufficient incompatibility that seperate, client specific networks arise? What we really need is an agreement between the different developers to pass on these extra packets, or agree on a central "feature set". I am not advocating that we do away with the myriad gnutella clinets, I think there variety and different personalities are great. I just don't want to see the community splinter through incompatibility issues.

-OctaneZ
(What I would really like to see is a native applications similar to Clip2's reflector for both WIN32 and Linux that serves as a "network server" only, that uses low CPU and large numbers of connections for people who believe in the Gnutella idea and are graced with highspeed connections.)

i had all but given up on gnutella until i came across limewire. in my opinion this is the best gnutella clone out there. has anyone seen something better?

You may be informed on the options, I may be informed, the average slashdot reader may be informed, but I guarantee you the average Napster user *IS*NOT*.

When they reported this on CNN, they had the Bearshare homepage on the screen in the back. And I think they even mentioned Limewire, which our linking AC overlooked. People aren't as dumb as you believe, they might not figure it out immediately, but it's not that difficult. Of course, then there's people like Martha Stewart, who was so amazed by a Real Player demonstration, she was paraphrased to have said, "Oh, that's neat. I'll bet one day you'll be able to find any type of music with a click of a button. Wonderful."
--

• multiple searches at once. This by far the biggest of my wishlist. Given the time it takes for Gnutella searches to return (10-30 secs on average), I like to type in a few key words and let it go. All searches are presented in their seperate tabs.
• download a file from ONE of MANY locations. This is cool aswell. So that you don't have to manually deal with rejected downloads.
• Nice category support. You can connect to different set of hosts by
  • connection speed (t1, dsl, 56k...)
  • content ( music, adult, images...)
  • region (us, europe...)
• Maintains connections very nicely (not taxing the system)
• has all other nitfy features (resume downloads, multiple shares...etc)
• written in Java, for me that is a PLUS.

Finally a Gnutella client that had most of my wishlists. It appears almost bug free too. When I run it for 3-4 days in a row, it might hang. IT also creates too many threads when left running for a long time. But the threads are idle.

I quit using Napster long back. I run LimeWire all the time on my computer and it accounts for a major chunk of traffic on my DSL.

If you haven't you should give this a try.

any one else can recommend anything similar??

LinuxLover

Limewire is the best gnutella client yet. Each Limewire client on the gnutellanet actually strengthens the network. It is rather large for a gnutella client, but it is (hopefully) a sign of great things to come.

Sure, everyone knows about the scaling problems of GNUtella and clones, but the latest version of BearShare is an easy to use, no, idiot proof GNUtella clone for M$-windoze. I have been using it for a couple days now.

One of the main sources of problems for GNUtella is the type of content traded on the network. With 5MB songs, trading is quick and easy, but with 700MB mp4 DVD rips, trades take half a day, causing would-be-sharers to be locked into a small number of leachers for about half a day. GNUtella and clones tend to trade larger files more often than Napster. This causes you to be queued far more often, when requesting a file from a source who is sharing a DVD or two.

Still, if you have 10 minutes, check out either:
BearShare (for Windblows)
Limeware (for Linux, etc)

While it is important to look towards the future technologies such as Freenet or Alpine, the here-and-now matters the most. The current status of both Freenet and Alpine is not good enough for widespread use as a P2P network. The best thing for now is to try one of the new GNUtella servants (far better than the original in terms of ease-of-use and performance)... or try a hacked napster. However, sticking with the Napster tech is a bad idea... tech should move towards full distributed networks for robustness reasons.

Even though GNUtella can't scale in its current protocol version, I still see it as being the next generation after napster. Soon, the GNUtella protocol will be revised to greatly improve performance, and the GNUtella generation will hit prime time.

After that, people will want even better performance, anonymity, security, etc...
Those forces will bring about the following generation. Who will fill it? Well, thats the generation when we will see Freenet, Alpine, and other more ideal networks, fight for power.

All the while, in between generations, "duct tape" proxies will be used to mend the gaps.

At first: When I'm talking about "Napster" I'm mostly talking about Gnapster and the OpenNap-Network, as I've only tried that.

OK, so I've been using Napster for some time and wasn't quite satisfied. Then I tried Gnutella in the incarnation of the LimeWire client and I think it rocks.

The Napster-Network may have its benefits, but it's like AOL: Just about everyone can use it. There often are these guys that can't figure out, how to change their shared-directory to exclude their precious files, but instead read in some l33t magazine, that they can set their max. uploads limit to 0. That is, I may find the file I want, but will be unable to download it.

Opposed to this I found it much harder to get into the Gnutella Network, and others might have too. Therefore, the user base of Gnutella is more experienced and educated about the importance of sharing in a peer2peer network. LimeWire did its part to this.

Gnutella might not scale as good as Napster doe, but as noted before, it doesn't have to. In Napster one has access to around 5 Terabyte, as opossed to Gnutella where I found to have an average 60 TB available. There is no need for even more files. On the other hand (remember that "No one will ever need more than 640KB of RAM"?) it will probably increase on its own, as technology evolves.

It will not increase in size, because more size is needed, but because more is possible.

Gnutella was fun for a while, but I like to also BROWSE lists...not knowing what I want till I see it

You should maybe try the limewire client for Gnutella. It's probably the most robust and stable Gnutella client out there, and it allows host browsing.

LimeWire sucks because there is no source code. Also this.

Hopefully ideas like this will get people to SHARE -- and then Gnutella won't suck. You can have the best network in the world, if there's no content, it blows.

Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto