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The Gnutella War: Free vs. Commercial
Anenga writes "Slyck has an interesting interview with Mike of Shareaza regarding Gnutella2 (see older stories), where he expresses his opinions on how Gnutella2 has been recieved within both the user and developer community. The reaction from the top commercial clients, Limewire and BearShare, on Gnutella2 (as seen in the GDF and elsewhere) is that they will not support it because of how it was presented, however, Gnucleus (free, open source) plans to support it and feels the GDF is not seeing the bigger picture. John Marshall of Gnucleus says 'Now it's more like "Free vs Commercial" clients, which [the latter] would rather develop their own next generation protocol (which would probably never happen).' The article in short: Shareaza will keep Gnutella2 open/free, it's already been very successful with a 80-100k growing userbase, Gnutella2 was *not* based on Limewire's GUESS proposal and is in fact very different from it and Shareaza will continue to both support the original Gnutella ('G1') and of course G2."
My question would have to be why Limewire/Bearshare/etc have flat out decided to absolutely not support the new protocol, when it seems fairly obvious that both protocols could be implemented within one client. I understand their wish perhaps develop their own proprietary protocol, but this seems like treading water to me. SPECIFICALLY in a P2P architecture, wouldn't more protocols be a direct correlation to access to more files, and in that case, an increase in popularity, quality and then, in turn, profitability?
Sig.i>
What I don't understand is how desperate you have to be to go commercial with application which is used mainly for illegal file sharing. I mean, cmon people are sharing mp3's, divx-ripps, applications and games. Not like somebody would actually download mpegs of my pets or my kid brother's birthday. Not that I am preaching, but it was kinda gray activity, we all know what it is used for. Going commercial is going to be the death of it, but hey they, are just lazy and are trying to make a living without having a proper job. I wish somebody would pay me money to change desktop backgrounds in my blackbox, and play around with my Eterm, because I think it's fun. I kinda grow out of that idea long time ago, and had a nice job since... Get a life.
I think the paragraph that pays for me is:
"The GDF's first reaction was negative because they claimed it used the same ideas from other proposals. Once the protocol specs were released this was obviously false, but the GDFs reaction was still negative so Mike has not bothered to release the rest of the specs.
What it really sounds like is that the commercial entities are balking for something. That is, they are negotiating with their veto.What specifically they want out of this, whether it is a voice in the process or perhaps a cut of the action, I'm not entirely clear. I'd like more on what the author of the article called the 'backstory'.
--- have you healed your church website?
Gnutella basically uses flooding (limited by some TTL)... basically the network expends a large effort to execute queries, and you still don't query all of the network (or even necessarily a very large part of it)
Gnutella might work OKish if you're connected by a fat-enough pipe, but otherwise it does very poorly.
The published interview is about as balanced as a Linux press-release issued by Microsoft. A couple of points to consider:
- Shareeza has implemented a new protocol and released it soely on it's own client. It hasn't publish any hard details and it's dubbed it "Gnutella2" with no support from existing supporters of the Gnutella protocol.
- The existing clients are a bit upset that Mike has done this, and his actions since, but doesn't really have an opinion on the technology becuase its specifications have not been released.
This seems to me as a fairly egotistical kid hijacking the Gnutella name for his own purposes, then charactising eveybody else as bitter about his wonderful new tchnology.
Theworse thing is that the GDF even pay attention to this fellow, they should just igonre him rather than waste their energy on being upset at his lack of manners.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
I agree that you have a point about "proprietary," but I think the word "commercial" in the article and synopsis is accurate. There are three types of Gnutella clients:
a) Those which are free to download, free to use, and open-source
b) Those which cost money to download and use (e.g. "BearShare Pro")
c) Those which are free to download, free to use, closed-source, and invariably "ad-supported"
It's category c being referred to as "commercial" Gnutella clients. They're the ones who are in it to make some sort of a profit or at least to generate revenue - the software comes bundled with some adware or another - thus they are indeed "commercial" in nature.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Raphael Manfred: "I'm speaking only for myself here, but I will NOT support Mike's protocol unless I'm forced to do it. I was neutral-positive when this saga started, but Mike ruined it all by his stubborn attitude, and I'm now rather hostile-negative.
If there are good ideas in what he did, you can rest assure that we'll end up using them. He'll even get credit for those ideas, but it will be within the Gnutella network."
"tonygeek": I am sceptical. All signs are there that (Gnutella 2) is one strictly commercially driven undertaking/experiment (possibly by a very large company pulling all the strings from behind) and that somebody wants to experiment with his own network attached to one that is already up and functional.
"fungusbuttocks": I am another who is against Mike's use of the "Gnutella 2" name, because he simply did it as a marketing strategy (...)
If Mike releases a nicely documented unambiguous protocol doc when he's finished testing the beta, and the protocol appears to have some sort of mathematical merit to it, we should support the protocol.
Looks like the situation's less one-sided than the writeup makes it seem.
One of my biggest beefs about the Gnutella network is that, in general, there doesn't seem to be enough checking to determine whether or not specific hosts are still active. If I run Gnutella for a few hours to get some files, then shut it off for a week, I'm still getting hit with thousands of download requests per day a week later.
It seems like none of the popular servents give a damn that they've gotten an RST packet for each of the last 10,000 requests for file X from servent Y. They just keep plugging blindly away trying to get the file, and worse, some of the servents now store incompleted download data between sessions and resume their blind download attempts the next time the program is run. So this issue is no longer solved by natural transiency of nodes!
I feel sorry for the dialup users who dial in and wind up getting the IP address of someone who was sharing stuff on Gnutella a few hours ago (or even a week ago). Must be impossible to use such a connection.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
1) The developers opposing Gnutella2 seem to be the LimeWire developers (their client is open-source under the GPL see www.limewire.org), gtk-gnutella (GPL as well, see gtk-gnutella.sf.net) and BearShare (not open-source). So calling this a war between free and commercial is stupid, especially since Shareaza IS NOT open-source.
2) LimeWire and the other opposed Gnutella2 for a variety of reasons. They didn't want a new message format where the old would still work, they preferred the GUESS search algorithm over the Gnutella2 search and they said they would not accept the name because if there ever was a Gnutella2 it should be announced by the whole GDF (Gnutella Developer Forum) and not by a single developer.
3) After Shareaza developer Mike Stokes has shown an attitude towards the GDF that could very well be called hostile, things got a little out of hand. The GDF now demands that Mike hands the Gnutella2.com domain to the people running Gnutella.com. Mike won't do so and Raphael Manfraedi (gtk-gnutella) has even proposed to start blocking gnutella2 enabled clients.
4) Shareaza fan's like the one who posted this news story helped a great deal to create the current situation by flaming on the GDF, posting rumors and lies (like Shareaza had 80k-100k users - even Mike Stokes denied that) on various news sites and in gnutella-centric forums.
5) The Gnutella2 protocol is still an undocumented proprietary extension.
What I don't understand is why everyone actually talks about `gnutella2' here. There are many different P2P protocols
available. This guy named his gnutella2 and now we should believe it actually is the second version of the gnutella protocol?
Shouldn't we have a discussion about what makes a good protocol before adopting it as a (pseudo)standard?
In this context I'm afraid the commercial vendors might have a point.
Free vs. Commercial...?
And when has commercial ever won out to free when it comes to file sharing, music specifically? Doesn't mean they're not welcome to try, but if history is any indication, somebody is on the wrong side of the profit-8ball (spyware and banner adverts not withstanding, of course...)
You need a FREE iPod Nano
What I'm trying to understand is why does everybody and their brother build a brand new P2P network (or try to)? What's the point? There's exactly $0 to be made off of it. More network just mean that each one is not as good, since files are spread out across multiple networks, not just one. Kazaalite works just fine. Why switch? This is another geek vs. businessman thing where a bunch of geeks are creating things for no apparent reason whatsoever other than the fact they may think it's "cool".
I'm not a Shareaza fan, But I think Mike is within his rights to call his protocol Gnutella2 if he wishes.
I've been following this thing for a while now and this is my view. Gnutella was made by a group of developers at nullsoft, right? They never trademarked the name and eventually abandoned the technology all together, I believe.
GDF is an ad hoc group put together to continue the development, but have no special rights concerning gnutella.
Love him or Hate him, I think Mike is perfectly in his rights to call his protocol Gnutella2. It's not a very nice thing to do, but he is within his rights.
The GDF should accept this, realize that at any time someone can create a 'Gnutellan' and all the GDF need to do is that when describing their protocols, specify the version that they created and/or endorse. eg 0.6, etc.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
GNU Internet File Transfer
http://gift.sourceforge.net/
" What is giFT, you ask? giFT is a modular daemon capable of abstracting the communication between the end user and specific filesharing protocols (peer-to-peer or otherwise). The giFT project differs from many other similar projects in that it is a distribution of a standalone (platform-independent) daemon, a library for client/frontend development, and our own homegrown network OpenFT. "
This is a great network, where you find many oggs, downloads actually work (up to 600kb/s!!) and finding files is really fast. Lots of altruists are using it. Plus: You have to compile it from CVS, which prevents idiots from using the network. On the average each user shares 8 GB!
Moritz
The anti-G2 lot isn't just lacking reason, they're contradicting it. They would cut off their nose to spite their face (or Mike Stokes). This is the mentality we're dealing with:
"...as long as gnutella2.com exists in its current form, you are all fifty cent whores that got pimped by Slimy Mike."
Childish and spiteful. This is not the attitude with which to reach compromise and solve problems. Name calling? Are we freakin' twelve?
In the end, the G2 opponents are being obstinately selfish, and the heated, illogical emotion they're injecting into this discussion is hurting far more than helping the community by delaying the widespread implementation and deployment of a superior protocol that has already been tested and used effectively in public hands.
I don't care what anyone personally thinks of Mike, his opinions, or how he's handled the unleashing of Shareaza on the world. The only working reason in this argument is the Gnutella2 mark, and the G2 opponents seem to be desperately clinging to it, as if this is the only way they can oppose G2 without showing their true feelings, which I suspect have to do either with personal conflicts such as Shareaza stepping on the feet of other Gnutella players. Surely its a sign that the Loud Voices complain that G2 will only cause a schism, but then turn around and talk about Gnutella3 as a way of battling G2. Would I be wrong to construe this as an indicator of where certain peoples' intentions really lie?
The G2 opponents are so busy thinking of creative ways to sanction Shareaza and Mike Stokes that they've not given a single thought to what course of action would most benefit the community of users in this situation. As a Gnutella user and developer, I say this spurious, wasteful behaviour must stop now before it gets any worse. I suggest they regain their emotional composure and grow the hell up.
For me, this is an awkward situation. I'm a proponent of all things open and Free, and I should support the GDF in this conflict else violate my principles. But my principles also encompass the proper behavior of a rationally thinking human being who wants to successfully communicate with others of his kind. In this regard, I find the behaviour of some GDF key players to be so repulsive that I like myself less when I support a protocol backed by propaganda-spewing, egotistical drama queens than when I support a protocol that's only quasi-open, or less, as is currently the case. (I _really_ hope Mike opens up G2. It would be such a graceful way of pulling the rug out from under these fools, and beyond that I don't know how long I can endure taking sides here without having an ethical melt-down.)
Niko
PS
Replace the phrase 'G2 opponents' with the name 'Vinnie', who seems to think calling people 'slimey' and 'imbicile' demonstrate one's argumentative superiority. His contradictions of logic, hypocrisy, personal attacks on the character of those making neutral observations or expressing neutral opinions, all serve as wonderful examples of how not to effectively influence people or raise support for a cause. He's like a politician who's election campaign consists of insulting the mothers of his constituents.
> All of this is a moot point. Mike wont change the name, no one here
> can make him. Get over it. This is so rediculously unimportant in
> the scheme of things I hate to see so much list traffic dedicated to
> it.
Amen.
The commercial interests do not want to be compatible with "truely free" clients because their business model is based completely on bundling spyware with their application. If a spyware-free program that has access to the same network exists, who'd download their spyware?
Kazaa has one huge problem for me: large downloads invariably corrupt. That doesn't really matter for movies since it just means you have a few seconds of distorted sound/picture. However, if you're downloading things that need to be 100% intact like (cough) a linux iso (cough) it is very convenient if the p2p client bothers to verify that what it is downloading is the same as that should be downloaded.
Shareaza solves this problem, kazaa doesn't. However, the shareaza network is so small currently that there isn't much to download. With 3 million users at any time, the Kazaa network is unbeatable in that respect.
Jilles
Limewire has a GPL version at www.limewire.org. There is no spyware in it. You can always checkout the lastest CVS version, compile it and use it. I do.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Mike has said on numerous occasions that he will release the G2 protocol when it is finished. Since the protocol is still in beta and being changed, it's still not finshed. When he works out the bugs and makes it as good as it can be, it will be released.
If you had read the venom pouring forth from some members of the_gdf you'd realize "bitter" is a rather severe understatement. There are definitely some egotistical kids involved in all this, but I think your labelling has been misdirected.
I've worked on gtk-gnutella with Raphael Manfretti, and while I haven't been in touch with him for a bit, your comment sort of stopped me cold.
Raphael and the other main developers have put *huge* amounts of time into developing and *carefully documenting* a protocol that's pretty backwards compatible. They've been in contact with each other to ensure that their clients work well, and are one of the more impressive examples of competitors working together for everyone's good.
Now, after all this work to avoid protocol fragmentation, one guy makes a new protocol. He uses some work from existing members, and refuses to publish any specifications. He then *takes* the name from this project that has seen *so* much work to be open (because he wants to grab a bit more PR and a few more $$$), and uses it.
Now, these developers are, more than understandably, frusterated. This leads to lots of end-user confusion. It's bad for *everyone involved*. Had Make said "I'm making a new protocol and calling it Sharella" or something, it would have been okay. But he created incompatibility, *he* refused to publish specs to let other developers remedy that, and *he* is out trying to profit off the users of the network.
So, I have to disagree. I've seen a lot of Raph's writing, and while sometimes he turns something down, he acts a lot more mature than, say, Linus does.
Your criticism of him is unfounded.
May we never see th