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uServ -- P2P Webserver from IBM
ryantate writes: "Some folks over at IBM have been working on the uServ Project, which provides "high availability web hosting ... using existing web and internet protocols", meaning you can serve a website from your desktop and people can get at it with a standard Web browser and without special software. They claim the system, which works from behind firewalls and when you are offline (provided you can convince other peers to 'replicate' your site), is in active use by about 900 people within IBM. Here's the white paper."
Freenet already does all this, and in addition, provides for complete anonymity and encryption. It can also be tunneled over just about any other protocol (instead of being limited to HTTP like uServ). It is still under heavy development, but already contains a wealth of information. This is one of the few truly great open-source projects in development today.
So, let's see what the IBM thingy does... hmm, well, it serves web pages (check), provides dynamic DNS check (check), and it distributes the load to other boxes, after you manually set it up to do so (check).
Sure, the slick interface is a value-add, by I don't really think of this as Peer-To-Peer. It'd be a lot more interesting if it automatically distributed the load, replicated the most accessed content, etc.
It doesn't look like anything revolutionary to me. It's just a distributed system and a dynamic DNS put together. The coordinator still needs to be online at all times.
(subject line spoken in a gruff voice like in the old Wendy's commercials)
I guess that "billion dollars spent on Linux" must be going towards buying IBM execs bigger leather chairs and fine art to decorate the hallways.
If they want the advantages of Open Source community, they ought to try being part of the community. Lameness.
In a standard corporate intranet, what is the preferred method to share files between end users? Far as I can tell, there isn't one. That's the point. Same goes with home users.
Sure, we can email things. But, as pointed out in the whitepaper, this uses third-party resources -- a mail server.
FTP? Ok, you teach joe computer user to ftp a file to you -- oh, where are you gonna put it? You need a server somewhere to put it on.
This thing is designed for average computer users who want to share stuff -- like pictures and log files -- but don't want to take the time to install a web server (or can't tackle the learning curve, or can't install a web server because they've got no static IP, etc, etc.)
Have a read of the whitepaper linked in the article. It's actually quite a neat idea.
BN
IT really is. A sun workstation rocks
Maybe the OSS community should look into something like this... a moron-safe, web-based file sharing project for the masses that ignores anonymization and encryption in order to gain a more critical mass.
I'd be interested to know first how, in general, how one can create any type of p2p tool without having to fear legal problems because what users share might be copyrighted in some countries. Has the MPAA / RIAA ever said anything on that topic? The most popular stuff will probably be copyrighted music and videos. How do I, as a developer, avoid that my tool gets used for that type of content? Why do I have to provide solutions for that 'problem' in the first place? Why don't they go after Joe X. who shares movies on IP w.x.y.z? Whenever I create something easy to use, I must fear to get punished for it. Where are Hillary Rosen's suggestions, she was the one to ask p2p developers to work together with content right owners. This isn't some technical detail, it's the very core problem.