Slashdot Mirror
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."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
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.
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.
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.
Keep quiet...the universities might hear us!
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
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...
Banaaaana!
The PeerCast FAQ is a good introduction to PeerCast.
.: Max Romantschuk
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)
There is no
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?
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!!
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.
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.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
It's not a "filesharing" client/server... it's a "streaming" client/server. There's a big difference here. ,y favorite club starts using this, so I don't have to worry about their limit to the number of simultaneous listeners they support!
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
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.
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...
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
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.
Jilles
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."
Kid-proof tablet..
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