Peercast Source Available

jilles writes "Peercast, a p2p streaming program, has had some attention on slashdot recently. Now the source code has been released under GPL. Please find the announcement + source code here."

Comments

Delayed post

[ekrout]

Similar to delayed branches and loads.

Bless you Hennesey & Patterson.

Stanford rocks!

Fastrack

[batboy78]

Now if only the code for the FastTrack system would be released. Perhaps a better protocol could be developed with a mix of Gnutella and FastTrack.

Re:Fastrack

[XTerm89D]

giFT anyone ?

giFT has proven to be an extremely reliable program, even though it's CVS only.
Please note that you have to checkout a new version every 3 days orso to be able to connect.

Re:Fastrack

[packeteer]

Fastrack is only good because there is a lot of users. If everyone on fastrack switched over to gnutella all would be fine. Although the same could be argued for switching to fastrack. Personally i like gnutella more but when p2p works its good enough for me.

Re:Fastrack

[Anonymous Coward]

You opensource kids. Gimme, gimme, gimme.

Well you gave me the source to this, but now I want this too.

How about thank you?

Re:Fastrack

[Zorikin]

OpenFT?

There's already an implementation of the FastTrack protocol, the problem is that the kazaa-and-friends network doesn't allow clients which aren't blessed by the authentication server to connect.

Gnutella clients have been and still are accumulating the useful features of FastTrack.

Re:Fastrack

[batboy78]

After reviewing the giFT site I believe it shows a lot of potential. The only thing that seemed to bother me was the simple availability of IP addresses gathered from the client. IP addresses = ISP = Account Name = RIAA & MPAA & everyone else knocking on your door. But its still very much in development.

Re:Fastrack

[Per Wigren]

If everyone on fastrack switched over to gnutella all would be fine.

No, that would be HORRIBLE! Gnutella doesn't scale that much.

Re:Fastrack

[Anonymous Coward]

www.gnutella2.com
www.shareaza.com

G2, ur talkin about G1 I get 140K/s from peers on g2, and others, i dont even need to be connected to the network once i got my peer.

G2 scales better.

Re:Fastrack

[evilviper]

It certainly does now. I was very concerned when Morpheus switched to Gnutella, but it went off without a hitch.

Re:Fastrack

[Anonymous Coward]

I dumped Kazaa and winmx long ago, kazaa = fakes and its going commercial now more, winmx = too slow.

Shareaza on G2 owns (I disable G1 networks, they suck).

Kazaa, u can stay with the lamers, i moved on.

Re:Fastrack

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok where is a definitive list of P2P Protocols and clients and what they support?

I use DC++ and Shareaza (for G2 only).

Shareaza has HUGE potential and Gnutella2 owns.

Re:Fastrack

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont just leech opensource i'll have you know.

Im not an opensource zealot, I also leech closedsource commercial stuff.

Re:Fastrack

[Anonymous Coward]

hehe.

Some ideas I have been tossing around...

A foundation to open source Internet Explorer... ?

A distribution to make linux more difficult to use, to keep out all the non-techies of course..

Turn Tux Racer into a closed source Windows only game. Oh, too late..

Re:Fastrack

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnutella1 doesn't, but Gnutella2 scales just fine. It uses UDP style searching, and it's spec-developer (Mike) informs his users that it can withold millions of nodes and still have a good stable global search.

Whee.

Re:Fastrack

[PjotrP]

dont most of the mainstream p2p networks have ip adresses easily available? making the client hide ip adresses doesn't help much if you're scared the RIAA will log ip adresses, does it?

Re:Fastrack

[Ford Fulkerson]

RIAA & MPAA & everyone else knocking on your door.

I can't imagine anyone knocking on your door, unless you use it to share their content.

Re:Fastrack

[Anonymous Coward]

Staying with the average great speeds and quickly accessible content.

Not moving onto a small cult of homosexual goat-worshipping perverts. Sorry.

Re:Fastrack

[Zaffle]

The only thing that seemed to bother me was the simple availability of IP addresses gathered from the client. IP addresses = ISP = Account Name = RIAA & MPAA & everyone else knocking on your door.

This is a problem inherint in most Internet based sharing systems (as that damn annoying popup ad says, you're broadcasting your IP address (duh, it's how the Net works, you can't stop that (well, see below)).

There are alternatives however, the much proclaimed FreeNet, and IIP, however, with IIP, (which is secure & anonymouse IRC) sending/receiving files is, afaik, still in heavy alpha testing.

FreeNet, as a concept works, and as a product, is usable, however, due to the complex nature of the task it does (complete anonimity), it is slow. Frost is the best way currently to swap files. Frost is (imho), NNTP for freenet.

With every other system, your IP address is available, this includes Gnutella and Fasttrack. If you want to hide who you are, you need to use Freenet. Take a look at the "bad" stuff on FreeNet (I mean figuativly, not literally). The reason why there is so much, is because its SAFE to put it there (unless you are really stupid).

The only other thing you could do is find an ISP that guarentees to destroy any record of who used what IP address at what time. However, that doesn't stop a court ordered tapping being placed to monitor you in real time.

Re:Fastrack

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have been a G1 user and just stereo typed, there are more fakes on kazaa than u can shake a stick at. Dont know why you search for the "goat" keyword but thats your personal choice. You get all that on kazaa (and most are fake). I got my Enterprise rips on Gnutella2 before i got em on kazaa results, I get jack all results nodays on kazaa.

average speeeds eh, i get 1Mbps, seems top speed for my cable. its about results, and i get more on G2 and Dc than i ever do on kazaa.

And kazaa will get worse over time. Its a sinking ship, i have already jumped off it. You will too, in time.

Re:Fastrack

[EpsCylonB]

because most of their users started using kazaa, which is essentially the same program as morpheus.

Re:Fastrack

[ReelOddeeo]

I can't imagine anyone knocking on your door, unless you use it to share their content.

You might need a better imagination.

The *AA views the mere act of listening to mp3's, the mere act of using p2p to be piracy.

(No I'm not crazy. The foregoing is a plausible conclusion from the facts. How they actually view things is perhaps unknowable.)

They can always knock on your door, send you a letter, etc. (not busting down your door, I would hope) telling you to stop using p2p. They could harrass you until you went to the trouble to get them to stop.

Remember that with things digital we are moving towards a guilty until proven innocent system. "Hey, Mr. ISP, shut down his account because he is running p2p, and we claim copyright infringement." No proof required.

My point is simply that just because you are innocent doesn't mean the *AA might not harrass you.

Download conditions?

[Anonymous Coward]

The peercast web page says "To download the PeerCast source you must also agree to the following conditions..."

The GPL says "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."

Sounds like there is some incompatibility here.

Re:Download conditions?

[Anonymous Coward]

And they require that modifications be licensed under their commercial license along with the inability to revoke modifications--is this a code grab clause that allows them to close the source without any recourse for conributors?

Re:Download conditions?

[minus_273]

look at the conditions, they are about enforcing the GPL. only the first one is not and i suppose thathas nothing to do with the code more to do withet health of the main network.

To download the PeerCast source you must also agree to the following conditions:

a) You must not connect to the main PeerCast network if you have modified any of the code in the `core` module. (see below)

b) You must not submit modifications to us that contain or use code that is not under the terms of the GPL.

c) You must agree that any modifications accepted into the main PeerCast CVS will automatically fall under the terms of the GPL and PeerCast commercial license.

d) You must agree to the terms of the GPL license that covers PeerCast.

e) We reserve the right to accept or deny modifications to the main PeerCast CVS.

f) Modifications accepted into the main PeerCast CVS can not be revoked. (see below)

Re:Download conditions?

[theoddbot]

From their webpage:

To download the PeerCast source you must also agree to the following conditions:

a) You must not connect to the main PeerCast network if you have modified any of the code in the `core` module. (see below)

b) You must not submit modifications to us that contain or use code that is not under the terms of the GPL.

c) You must agree that any modifications accepted into the main PeerCast CVS will automatically fall under the terms of the GPL and PeerCast commercial license.

d) You must agree to the terms of the GPL license that covers PeerCast.

e) We reserve the right to accept or deny modifications to the main PeerCast CVS.

f) Modifications accepted into the main PeerCast CVS can not be revoked. (see below)

The reason being that broken clients will affect everyone on the network. In order to help you test changes we have set up a seperate network solely for this purpose.

If you find a bug after submitting, simply resubmit the changes.

(a) Could be the Terms Of Service for their network. Shouldn't be a problem with the GPL there. And they have set up a separate test network for you.

(b) and (d) are just restating the GPL

(e) Is fair enough. They can accept whatever they want into their tree. If you don't like it, fork.

(c) and (f) should also be fine. They have released their code under the GPL. There is nothing in the GPL to obligate them to incorporate any changes you make back into their tree.

If you want your code in their tree, agree to their terms. If you don't like it, fork.

-Spyro

Re:Download conditions?

[MontyP]

" The reason being that broken clients will affect everyone on the network. In order to help you test changes we have set up a seperate network solely for this purpose. When you are happy that your changes work, then please make a submission to the CVS so that we can make the changes available to everybody.
If you absolutely need to use the main PeerCast network to test, then you must let us know beforehand. Please state the changes made and when you plan to connect. Although in most cases its much easier to use one of our test networks instead. "

Re:Download conditions?

[Mike Schiraldi]

In addition to what this guy says, the people who own the copyright are allowed to put additional restrictions on top of the GPL. It's people who want to modify or redistribute it who cannot add more restrictions.

For example, i can write a program and put it on my website and say, "You can use this program under the terms of the GPL so long as you jump up and down first and call yourself a beagle." However, once they downloaded it, i couldn't stop them from making it available on their website without the jumping/beagle clause.

Re:Download conditions?

[Mike Schiraldi]

Hmm. "this guy" was supposed to be a link to the comment that showed that the only real restriction listed was related to the network TOS. Not sure why it didn't show up; it was there in "Preview".

Re:Download conditions?

[sbwoodside]

The peercast web page says "To download the PeerCast source you must also agree to the following conditions..."

The GPL says "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."

The GPL also says "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
covered by this License; they are outside its scope."

So there's no problem. Move along.

Re:Download conditions?

[FunkyChild]

d) You must agree to the terms of the GPL license that covers PeerCast.

(b) and (d) are just restating the GPL

As far as I know, the GPL doesn't stipulate that you must agree to the GPL in order to use the software. Since the GPL affords extra rights you can either:

a) use the software like any other closed source software, with all the protections of copyright law (eg no unauthorised distribution etc.)

or b) agree to the GPL, and in doing so receive the extra rights that the author gives you such as the right to modify, reate derivative works etc, under the conditions specified in the agreement.

You have a choice - either agree to the GPL in it's entirety or just use the software under the usual terms of copyright law. The GPL is not a EULA that defines the terms of you using the software, it is an agreement one chan choose to enter into, in order to gain additional rights.

Re:Download conditions?

[ComputerSlicer23]

(c) and (f) are not as wholesome clean as they appear. They require implicit trust of the entity your dealing with not to at some point abuse your trust. They have a great deal of power, and a change in management, or a court order could cause them to abuse those powers.

You need a lawyer to properly interpret what they mean in c. Do they mean a specific version of the Peer Cast Commerical license, or do they mean what it says after you've agreed, and they've since re-written it?

The really stupid part, is they don't force you to give up your copyright. So if they you submit changes back to them, and they want to change the license, they aren't the copyright holder, you are, so they have to ask you for your permission. At least, if you hire a lawyer and stop them they do.

Okay, what in the hell do they mean by revoke in part (f)?. No one but a CVS committer can "revoke" anything. Are they saying, if legal issues come up you can't force them to remove the code. Uhh, they can't usurp the legal authority that says they can't have it in the first place. Are they saying, that if you change your mind on the source, it can't be removed. Uhhh, I've already agreed to your current license, what more do they want? They can always keep the current code I've submitted under the commerical license in effect when I submitted the changes. This has potential for abuse.

Do they mean, if they add code I don't like, I can't remove/revoke it in my local copy. Uhhh, that really not very GPL like, and clearly not compliant with GPL source.

Depending on how all this reads, and what precisely the legal implications of it are, this is not a very nice license. If they want to say, look, we'll accept your changes into the mainline tree, but you have to give up your copyright, and it's releasable under the GPL and our commercial license. That's a lot like the FSF, except the commercial license bit.

If they want to have terms on connecting to their network, that's fine. Make it a term of agreement for connecting to the network, but that isn't compatible with GPL as a term of downloading the source. The really ironic part, is what if you give it to me under the GPL, I never agreed to any of these terms, so they don't apply to me at all. I have them under the license of the GPL. None of these terms transfer w/ the GPL (specifically, because you can't add additional terms to the GPL). It might be a GPL like license, but it sure isn't the GPL.

I see what it is they are attempting to accomplish, but it's pretty clear they don't have a good legal staff. IANAL, and even I can see all kinds of blantant legal problems with this. I'd expect them to fold inside of a year as a business if this is all the more they pay attention to detail.

Kirby

Re:Download conditions?

[evilviper]

"You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."

Their extra restrictions are mostly deal with CVS, their peercast network, and re-iterate that it's uner the GPL. No conflict if you actually read it.

Re:Download conditions?

[PeerCast]

As someone else mentioned, the GPL doesn`t give anyone rights to modify our tree, if you don`t like the idea of your code being in the main branch, then fork.

f) is common sense, if you submit a patch that gets accepted then you can`t really expect us to be able to roll back N versions if you suddenly decide you don`t want it in there anymore.

BTW peercast.org isn`t a business, we don`t have any legal staff, we`ve got a few programmers working in their spare time.

Re:Download conditions?

[ComputerSlicer23]

I've got no problems with my code being in your tree, but the licensing agreement, is clearly incompatible with the GPL (go read the GPL closely, and it'll jump out and bite you). I think I see what you're attempting to accomplish. However, (f) is either uneccessary, or in violation of the GPL. I've given it to you, and under the GPL, I can't possibly take it back. I can change the terms of distribution going forward, but the copy you have is always under the GPL. I'm the copyright holder, but I've given it to you under the terms of the GPL. That's what the GPL is all about. Richard Stallman's for all his personality faults didn't miss much with the legal fine points w/ the GPL. Item (f) either redundant, or could be used maliciously. It's not legally clearly defined, which makes it very dangerous in the hands of a laywer. (c) is just redundant, and uneccessary. Read up on what makes the GPL tick. If they don't agree with the GPL, then they can't use the code in any way, read item 6 I believe from the GPL. The GPL isn't a contract, its a copyright agreement.

Thanks, for linking to the parent of my post.... It's the one I was responding too, after I read it, and clicked "Reply to this". I was well aware of what was said there.

BTW peercast.org isn`t a business, we don`t have any legal staff, we`ve got a few programmers working in their spare time.

So if it isn't a business, why exactly do I have to agree to let you distribute it under your commercial license? It's a business, or you intend to start one if you have a "commerical license". Working in your spare time is how most small business start, hell it's basically how Apple and probably HP started. If you have a product, and a commercial license, you should at least have a lawyer of some type who reviews contracts, and legal documents like commercial licensing agreements. Even if it's just a friendly group of people. If you ever do any thing for money, your probably going to want to either incorporate, or setup some form of legal agreement between all the major copyright holders, and that will take a lawyer.

You've not accomplished much at all by the licensing agreement, besides making it illegal to use your software. The licensing terms violate the terms of the GPL, which basically means nobody can legally use your under the GPL, and you haven't granted them the rights to use it anywhere else. Which pretty much means it's useless.

Kirby

Re:Download conditions?

[AndrewRUK]

It isn't requiring you to agree to the GPL in order to use the software, it's only if you want a copy of the source. And as the only thing that entitles you to a copy of the source is the GPL, I see no reason why they cannot require your acceptance of it before giving you access to the source.

Re:Download conditions?

[3247]

According to the GPL, you have to give out the code without further restrictions if you distribute binaries. Currently, that's not a problem because Peercast can't violate their own copyright. But it will be a problem once they accept code from 3rd parties into their code.

Re:Download conditions?

[civilizedINTENSITY]

" (c) is just redundant, and uneccessary. Read up on what makes the GPL tick. If they don't agree with the GPL, then they can't use the code in any way, read item 6 I believe from the GPL. The GPL isn't a contract, its a copyright agreement."

Not true. Using the software isn't covered by the GPL:

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.

Re:Download conditions?

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Thats modifications that you submit to them...not merely modifications that you make. So a fork wouldn't be subject to their commerical liscence. I don't think they can use your modifications for their commercial work anyway, though, because you recieved it with the right to use it but to modify/distribute it you have to accept the GPL. When you submit it back, you are distributing your modifications. Hence, what they recieve is at that point GPL-ed, and even though they own the original rights (for which they can have multiple liscenses) your modifications are not subject to multiple liscenses...your modifications are GPL only. Yes? The only way around it would be if they said "wait, don't give us that modification, here is a commercial liscense and the source you started with...NOW lets see you do the same modifications and submit it to us". But that means you know have a commercial liscense too...

Re:Download conditions?

[Anonymous Coward]

peercast.org isn`t a business

You are requesting payment for a product that others build for you. You have a "Commercial License" intended to generate revenue under the right conditions for you. You're probably thinking more clearly about financial matters and a business plan than some startups. Welcome to the business world.

Re:Download conditions?

[PeerCast]

Just to clarify that, peercast.org isn`t a business as in it doesn`t have a business plan. The commercial license is there to stop other people from making money from the efforts of the people who programmed it, as a way of generating revenue its about as useful as relying on donations to pay the rent.
Sadly, thats the reality of business on the Internet these days.

Re:Download conditions?

[ComputerSlicer23]

What's the license on the binaries? Where's the agreement that says I can run them? I suppose since the binaries are available for download I can use those by implicit agreement. However, what allows me to copy the source if I don't have the GPL. Nothing. So again the source is in fact useless as currently licensed, because without a legal copy, it's pretty hard to compile. Someone who does accept the GPL could distribute the binaries to me, but no one can do that on firm legal ground. The licensing is self contradictory.. The binaries might be useful, because they did put them up for public download. Presumable that means I can run them. The source however, is completely useless to me.

Kirby

Re:Download conditions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kirby,

I really think you need to drink less coffee.

Re:Download conditions?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was referring to modifications that were submitted to them and, according to the page, all modifications that you submit will fall under the GPL license *and* their commercial license.

Of course, modifications that you make but don't submit don't have to fall under anything but the GPL if you are going to redistribute but the page *also* says that you are not allowed to use a modified client on the network.

how useful is Peercast?

[Zod000]

Perhaps I am missed the point of the program, but what good is a p2p streaming network? I mean its great that its GPL and all, but most people just like to leech files not listen to streaming audio. I suppose this could sort of get around the whole CARP problem, but I don't think this is the way to resolve that problem

Re:how useful is Peercast?

[MontyP]

If you are a user on a dialup modem, you will be able to broadcast music to the entire network. The stream is distributed to many other streaming servers and hence a small amount of bandwidth is required on your end to reach a large number of users. This would be fantastic for "Dialup DJ's" and others who don't have the bandwidth but want to stream out audio shows. GPL should allow the project to reach goals faster and possibly spawn other projects/ (streaming video, voip plug-ins)

Re:how useful is Peercast?

[tulare]

OK, maybe I am missing some bit of tech here, but won't a substantial amount of data need to initially pass over that 56k line to iinitiate the stream? Uploading an album-length mp3/ogg/ whatever is non-trivial timewise. Does the protocol allow for some caching and buffering? Otherwise I, with 5mbps download, am liable to see a given stream, go "oh, that sounds groovy," start to d/l it, and within a couple of seconds have burned through what has already taken a couple of hours to upload at the source.
Assuming the issues of buffering have been addressed (I.E.: don't make a stream available until it is complete on the network), this could be a pretty neat idea.

Re:how useful is Peercast?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its called streaming. Not downloading. You have a big fat adsl pipe, I have a modem. I send at 33k you stream it down at... 33k. Your not going to get a 256 kbit stream from a modem user. I'm listening to some peercast ogg streams now at 30 k and they sound like am radio.

Re:how useful is Peercast?

[jilles]

The protocol is the same as is used by shoutcast. All that peercast does is relay the stream. Typically clients such as winamp do some buffering.

Essentially, when streaming, you tell shoutcast/oddcast or whatever encoder you are using to stream the music to your peercast client rather than a regular shoutcast server. Peercast then inserts some meta information into the peercast network so that other clients can find your stream. Other peercast clients can connect to your client to receive the stream. Peercast treats received streams exactly the same as streams that come from oddcast so anyone listening to your stream can also relay it further on. Theoretically, this allows a modem user to stream to a nearly endless amount of users by uploading just 1 stream. In practice it is better to allow for two or three streams so you have somewhat better reliability. Of course you need bandwidth in order to be able to relay. Low bandwidth ogg streams propagate better through the network than 128kbit mp3 streams. Ogg streams of around 45 kbit seem to be popular among peercast users.

Recently the ability to relay regular shoutcast streams was added so if you have a regular shoutcast server, you may save some bandwidth by encouraging your users to connect using peercast rather than directly to your server. Alternatively you can set up your own peercast node next to your regular server.

GPL + Commercial

[XTerm89D]

Lately I see more and more companies release their program/product under the General Public License, saying that, if you want to use it in a commercial product you have to buy a commercial license.
I am modestly fond over this practice, but hey, more GPL software is good for everyone !
However some issues arise, say I write a patch for their program, and they incorporate it. If some then buys a 'commercial license' they are selling MY patch under a non Free license...
Furthermore, the FSF has announces an updated GPL in a few months... something tells me that the FSF might be tempted to make this sort of things impossible, since, if you look at it straighly this is a bit fishy.

Just my 2 cents.

Re:GPL + Commercial

[batboy78]

However some issues arise, say I write a patch for their program, and they incorporate it. If some then buys a 'commercial license' they are selling MY patch under a non Free license...

That is a very good question. What happens when someone makes a patch for a piece of GPL software and the parent company incorporates it into its tree. Is the patcher compensated? Are they legally able to turn around and sell their product? Or do they get away with selling "support" and not the actual product?

Re:GPL + Commercial

[Anonymous Coward]

It is completely legal for them if you submit the patch under the terms of their agreement, which states that whenever you submit a patch to them you are granting them the permission to distribute it under dual-license. They cannot, however, say.. take a GPL patch that's either floating around in the wild or off of a forked version and then distribute it under a non-GPL license.

You have to explicitly grant them the right to dual-license (submission == permission in this case).

Re:GPL + Commercial

[Gldm]

In my opinion, they must either have:

1) an agreement with the patch author to redistribute his/her code in the commercial version, which may involve some kind of compensation

or

2) a licensing clause detailing what parts of the commercial software are under different licenses as they've been submitted by other authors, and prompt the user to agree with those other licenses or remove the "patch" functionality

or

3) seperate installations of their base code and the modified "patch" code with seperate license agreements and credits for them

At least that's how I plan to do it. I want to do something similar to this with my own software but I really could use some experienced advice on it.

I think number 3 is not that unreasonable an option. The company could continue selling their "commercial" package as is, and then add a "bonus CD" full of GPL enhancements, updates, etc that the user may install seperately. As long as they're not absorbed into the product, and the user knowingly agrees to the different license terms for each, it should be fine.

Re:GPL + Commercial

[PeerCast]

Lately I see more and more companies release their program/product under the General Public License, saying that, if you want to use it in a commercial product you have to buy a commercial license.

I think its because alot of GPLd projects have been abused by both large companies and freeloading spy/adware makers. This is the main reason we have the commercial license in there at least. It would be great if we could do what MySQL have manage to do, ie. stay GPLd and funded at the same time. As you say, an updated GPL license that clarified this a little better would be very welcomed. We`d certainly use it.

Re:GPL + Commercial

[scottmartinnet]

The whole patch issue has been addressed. It comes down to the fact that by submitting a patch to a program under a certain licensing structure, you are implictly consenting to have your code licensed under the same structure. Why else would you have submitted the patch? And anyway, any patch that the original author would want to distribute as part of the application is almost certainly a derivitive work under copyright law, and not yours anyway, much like the way a second verse to a copyrighted song isn't yours.

It's not fishy at all. In fact, it's very much what the GPL has in mind. The GPL is about letting people have the freedom to modify the code they run and to distribute those changes, rather than being forced to treat all software as a big black box that they have to beg vendors to fix when it breaks. (Well, that and disclaiming liability.) Giving people the additional freedom to keep those changes secret and still distribute the product is perfectly fine, as long as you wrote all the code (or it was given to you). As the owner of the a program, you have all rights to it, and can give any subset of those rights you want in exchange for anything. There's nothing the GPL can do about that, short of adding a "belongs to RMS" clause.

The GPL is not about keeping money away from code.

Updates to the GPL are going to be about closing the loophole of web applications and the like, not about this.

Re:GPL + Commercial

[amccall]

(Standard IANAL). Usually this is handled by the company/group simply by requiring that any patches folded into the main tree have the copyright assigned to the Company/group developing it. The only problem would be if the company/group stole source code from a fork of the project, or they used a patch the developer did not agree to having this done with.

Whenever you get QT, IIRC, all of the source code in Troll Tech's distribution is owned by Troll Tech, even if there are revised versions floating around for KDE, or distribution packages.

There is no legal grey area here - developers can license there code under several licenses, and no reasonable change I can see to the GPL will stop that. Further, I can't see the FsF having any disare to put an end to the practice, as it is, in reality, supporting the end goal of Free Software.

Re:GPL + Commercial

[civilizedINTENSITY]

But if you recieved the right to make your patch by agreeing to the GPL, then "by requiring that any patches folded into the main tree have the copyright assigned to the Company/group developing it" means you are assigning to them the right to distribute your patch under the GPL. They could use the patch freely so long as they don't distribute the patch or anything derived from it, but in order to do the latter they themselves have to accept the GPL on your patch. Yes?

Re:GPL + Commercial

[civilizedINTENSITY]

"Giving people the additional freedom to keep those changes secret and still distribute the product is perfectly fine, as long as you wrote all the code (or it was given to you)."

But if the people who are distributing modifications to you are accepting the GPL in order to do so, then you don't get to reliscense the GPL-ed code as commercial. The patch can't be "given" to you without the "secret" be distributed and hence GPL-ed.

Re:GPL + Commercial

[Anonymous Coward]

the FSF cannot change the GPL. they can change the GPL, but it would be a different GPL. the existing GPL.txt in all of those software applications, would still stand.

the developers would need to update it to the newest GPL, all prior code would still be licensed the same way it was when it was released.

MOD PARENT UP!

[mikedotd]

mod this up!

Shhhh...

[Quaoar]

Keep quiet...the universities might hear us!

RIAA leaked it?

[Exiler]

Phase 1: Get source.
Phase 2: GPL it and have the servers Slashdotted.
Phase 3: ?????
Phase 4: Profit!

Yea yea, this is COMEDY people. I'm not quite that paranoid... .>

Re:RIAA leaked it?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Write beowulf cluster post.
2. Post BSD is dying post.
3. ????
4. Profit!

Re:RIAA leaked it?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Make rather obvious, cliche comments on Slashdot.
2. ????
4. Become gay!

The PeerCast FAQ

[Max Romantschuk]

The PeerCast FAQ is a good introduction to PeerCast.

...agree to the following condition...

[Cheese Cracker]

You must not connect to the main PeerCast network if you have modified any of the code in the `core` module.

Yeah sure... how many crackers will adhere to this condition?

Re:...agree to the following condition...

[PeerCast]

Yeah sure... how many crackers will adhere to this condition?

None. Its there to let well meaning hackers know what they should/should not do after they`ve downloaded the source.

Re:...agree to the following condition...

[Suicide]

Someone once told me...

A lock is just to keep an honest person honest. A dishonest person will get past it whether or not its locked, nor will they care that they had to.

one good application...

[Anonymous Coward]

if it's not already obvious to you already after reading the main page, would be for the small internet radio station.
one of my favorite audio programs comes from a local club down the street, who streams their dj shows. they have limited bandwidth, and can only support 10 128KBit streams simultaneously. i often can't listen to some of the live shows, because there are no more available connections.
with this software, now the number of listeners is unlimited... yay!!

Re:one good application...

[BrookHarty]

Unless the user is firewalled, or is using NAT. I'll be glad when they can force people to share so leeches cant abuse the system.

BTW, dont use 128K mp3, use 64K ogg, just as good, 1/2 the bandwidth. Also peercast supports ogg metadata, if your on ISDN(or idsl) you can actually listen to CD quality streaming music without pauses. Very cool.

Re:one good application...

[jilles]

Peercast also supports firewalled nodes. Streams can both be pushed and pulled. The only problem is that two firewalled nodes can't connect to each other directly. A firewalled node can push streams to none firewalled nodes and it can pull streams from none firewalled nodes.

Re:first post!

[Anonymous Coward]

Get your acronyms right! It's pirate-to-pirate!

is anyone else sick of the suffix cast?

[CySurflex]

cuz to tell you the truth I feel like we're being typecast as a bunch of peercasting multicasters who just broadcast our dreamcasts through comcast.

Re:is anyone else sick of the suffix cast?

[evilviper]

My English isn't so good. Could you simulcast that?

Re:is anyone else sick of the suffix cast?

[cyberserker]

Why you mothercaster!

Re:is anyone else sick of the suffix cast?

[paranoos]

i wonder if anybody has been clever enough to put you in a bodycast

Re:is anyone else sick of the suffix cast?

[mjolnir_]

so what's your pointcast?

Re:first post!

[SerpentBlade2100]

hmmm.. its only stealing if you are caught... or if you enjoy it.... or if you... ok, its stealing, but p2p is what the internet was designed for, right?

Re:Ok, but how many actually use it?

[kpansky]

Did you actually visit the homepage? Or even read the article? This is filesharing applied to a legal and very interesting situation.

This uses the gnutella protocol to repeat internet radio broadcasts between listeners. If you listen to a radio station, you have the option of rebroadcasting what your listening to to another person. This distributes the load of hosting a radio station and allows you to help out small (in particular personal) broadcasters.

I would love to use this, but I think that my University is filtering all evil copyright-infringing gnutella traffic to /dev/null... so I cant even use it for now.

P2P week on slashdot?

[SystematicPsycho]

Whats with all the p2p? Nevertheless, if any p2p network is going to survive, it needs both a legally and technically sound framework, each as important as each other. Just my 2 cents.

Re:P2P week on slashdot?

[alnjmshntr]

I would say legally OR technically sound.

Freenet is an example of a network that (in theory) could survive by being technically sound but not legally sound.

Re:History repeating.

[updog]

It's not a "filesharing" client/server... it's a "streaming" client/server. There's a big difference here.
With Gnutella, you're sharing files. With this software, you're sharing streams.
The cool thing about this is that a radio station (or any user for that matter) with limited bandwidth can now stream their program to an unlimited number of listeners.
I hope my ,y favorite club starts using this, so I don't have to worry about their limit to the number of simultaneous listeners they support!

Re:Ok, but how many actually use it?

[tanveer1979]

hmm, for starters you can stream data on a 56K modem, ie a broadcast. This is what peercast says. I think P2P is a misnomer, it is more like a streamer, if you wanna start a radio station.

Is it like icecast?

Re:Ok, but how many actually use it?

[BrookHarty]

Actually, it is p2p, if you are the DJ, you only need 1 (perfect world) stream out. Then another person connects and shares your stream out while listening. Thus spreading your music out, increasing with each additional user. If you have the bandwidth, you can stream multiple channels of the same content increasing the user availability of it. (64k in, 128K out, you now doubled the stream)

BTW, that woxy.com radio on peercast is rather good, listened to it the other day on a 64k ogg stream, awesome.

Start your education here

[GerardM]

When you start by saying that "it is clear", you assume that it is clear. To me it is not. One license compared to another license tries to achieve different things. Technically superior? I assume that you think BSD kernels are superior to the GPL kernels.

The bottom line of kernels is that to most people they are a given. It is the software on top that is important. A superior OS allows for superior software. That is why it is heartening to see non proprietary kernels evolve so well and become an alternative for desktop use.

Re:BSD license it

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod(s) on crack. This is what we call a "troll" that is normally to be ignoreed. *sigh* Oh, well.

Not quite unlimited

[tanveer1979]

with this software, now the number of listeners is unlimited... yay!!

Apparently it appears so. But the fact is that the bandwidth would again limit it. Well the server will need only one or 2 user BW, but what if you have somebody behind a firewall and dosent want to share... You have a broken chain. In the ideal world everybody would share, and you can have 1000 listeners on 100 K orginal source, but in the real world around 20% will be willing to share.

Re:Not quite unlimited

[adolf]

I think that your 20% figure is rather low, and greatly overestimates the level of knowledge posessed by today's typical internet user[1].

I therefore submit the following conjecture:

70% of bandwidth-equipped internet users are too stupid to do anything at all about sharing. 1/3 of these people are behind Linksys routers that they know nothing about, or are otherwise irrevocably firewalled.

This leaves about 46% of the unwashed masses sharing by default. That's about 32% of the whole Internet populace can do nothing but share, because they don't know any better.

And then there's the remaining 30%-big category of people who might be able to control whether or not they share with any surety.

A third of the people in this group are spiteful leeches and will never share. Another third favor equality, and will make an effort to give back what they take. And the remaining third are intelligent enough to realize that the more people share, the lesser the individual bandwidth penalty for sharing becomes. This latter group will spew forth as much data as needs dictate and their connection permits, thus cancelling the antisocial efforts of the spiteful portion.

Thus, on average, 62% of all internet users share.

This means that to sustain a stream, this 62% sharing majority of users will need to relay the program to an average of 1.6 people each. Some will do a bit more, some a bit less.

My RR cable modem wouldn't even notice if I started streaming at 50kbps (which sounds remarkably good with ogg) to 4 or 5 other people, let alone the paltry 1 or 2 listeners that such a system as this requires to stay healthy.

That all said, it'd sure be nice if multicast IP became a widespread reality. It'd put all of these issues to bed with much haste...

1: See "Jargon File," under section titled "The September that never ended."

An interesting inference

[tanveer1979]

Consider this, RIAA says 1$ per user, okay the radio station beams to one user, and that user passes it along. RIAAs jurisdiction will end at that point, ie the point of radio station. Beyond the radio station what the user is doing with stream is not under their control, unless some CARPA/DARPA bullshit comes to tackle it. So you can have live365 type stations take a breather. They can have only 5 streams, thats damn cheap by current rates, and the listenrs keep passing it along.

I am not too sure what legal redressal RIAA has against this thing, I doubt if there is any right now. Could anyone enlighten me?

Frankly speaking this could be a big coupe. Even if they change laws etc( I doubt that will be any time soon) they cant go running after everybody in the chain. If this network gets to be big, the hounds have a big task ahead of them. The only possible redressal for them is if they get the govt to ban the internet itself!

Guess what, technology always stays ahead...

Re:History repeating.

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't "Redundant" when it was written.

It only became redundant when others posted the same thing later.

Bah! stupid people.

peercast

[PhreakOfTime]

After reading through some of the message boards on their homepage, it seems the questions of it being released under a GPL type license were not met with too open of arms.

Interesting thread to read here. It will be interesting to see if this works or is just a stunt to pull in a bigger listener base to increase the network size. After all from the looks of that license, it seems to leave an out for everyone else to do the coding and them to sell it as a commercial product.

Re:peercast

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting thread [peercast.org] to read here. It will be interesting to see if this works or is just a stunt to pull in a bigger listener base to increase the network size. After all from the looks of that license, it seems to leave an out for everyone else to do the coding and them to sell it as a commercial product.

Please excuse the rant, but thats bollocks. They`ve stated from day one on the front page of peercast.org that it will be GPLd when its ready to be GPLd. If you think its a "ploy" to make them money, then you`re obviously a cynical, rich person that doesn`t need to earn a living.

I`m amazed there are any freeware projects left with attitudes like that - don`t release the source = evil marketing plan, release the source = evil marketing plan taking advantage of OS community.

Get a grip and a life.

Re:peercast

[PeerCast]

Actually, that thread was about "when" not "if" it was going to be OSd.

The license is GPL if you don`t intend it sell your app, its commercial if you do. Which I think is fair, unless you think we should spend our time coding so other people can make money?

Its quite funny because some not to unknown people advised us not to make it OS; "you`re damned if you do, damned if you don`t" they said.
I can see why now ;-)

Re:peercast

[civilizedINTENSITY]

"Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does. "

So if they download, isn't it GPL? Don't they have to mail you first to get to commercial standing?

Re:peercast

[PhreakOfTime]

The license is GPL if you don`t intend it sell your app, its commercial if you do

ok, but what if YOU decide to sell it? Do individual contributors get compensated for your gains. If so, then yes, there could be no more fair of an agreement.

Which I think is fair

Wow, you mean you actually think the agreement you made up for your own software is fair...shocking!!! Id wager 99/100 contract writers think the contract is fair, the important part is how its percieved by the users

Re:peercast

[PeerCast]

ok, but what if YOU decide to sell it? Do individual contributors get compensated for your gains. If so, then yes, there could be no more fair of an agreement.

If there was a realistic way of doing that then yes we would. Suggestions?

Wow, you mean you actually think the agreement you made up for your own software is fair...

Do you think the MySQL licensing agreement is fair?

Re:peercast

[PhreakOfTime]

If there was a realistic way of doing that then yes we would. Suggestions?

Sure, compensate contributors...the rest is up to you, its your business model. Either it works or it doesnt

Do you think the MySQL licensing agreement is fair?

it must be fair to those that use it, as for me personally, dont have a need to use it. Interesting tangent though.