P2P Services Speak Out Against Gnutella2

An anonymous reader writes "Three leading Gnultella services voice their opinions on Gnutella2 or Mike's Protocol as they refer to it as. None of the three recognize Gnutella2 as true Gnutella and worry its propritary protocol will divide the Gnutella community. In the first interview Vincent Falco of BearShare contributes his thoughts. The second interview gets input from Greg Blidson of LimeWire, and Arno Steenbekkers from XoloX."

Comments

Since Napster is dead....

[Economist]

... P2P is already divided in too many protocols and such.

Re:Since Napster is dead....

[Coke in a Can]

"Since all we're interested in is legitimate non-pirated music and software, why n-"

Whoawhoawhoawhoa, who said we're not interested in piracy?

Re:Since Napster is dead....

[samhalliday]

Peer to peer search clients in general just suck.

I agree, anytime i search for anything these days, all gnutella comes up with are about 100 files out there all called exactly what i want, but containing some kind of advertisment in surprise. Yeah, i can block that persons IP and stuff... but, there is so much false stuff floating around out there now that its not even worth the effort.

I hear figures which say P2P and napster kill off the music indutry, but in my own personal experience, i have seen quite the opposite: pushed by hearing new music for the first time in a long while, my father bought the only cds he has bought since they came out last year, and many of his friends also. i have also been on ICQ and asked friends, on the other side of the world "you hear so-and-so yet?" yeah, search on napster... and within days they have ordered the CD (which may or may not be sold locally in their country.).

i dunno where all these figures have come from, nobody prefers to listen to music through crappy computer speakers, they buy CDs to go in decent stereo systems when it is good enough...

Re:Since Napster is dead....

[larry bagina]

Since all we're interested in is legitimate non-pirated music and software

+5 funny. Or is it -1 Reality Distortion Field?

Re:Since Napster is dead....

[petrus4]

Can someone please explain to me why unity is always considered mandatory??

I really don't understand what is supposed to drive genuine innovation if we demand that everyone (as much as possible, anywayz) is under one banner and doing the same thing. Why is having many different P2P protocols a bad thing? I always thought that this kind of diversity meant that, even if eventually there had to be only one, having large numbers initially would better facilitate the selection process.

Read Darwin, people. Genuine technological development does not come about from rigid unity, but rather just the opposite. You have as many different prototypes, re-interpretations, code forks, or versions of whatever it is you're developing as possible. That way the most suitable model/s for the task are identified over time. The relevant salvageable features of the less suitable models can be taken and added to the more suitable ones, and the less suitable ones eventually fall away by themselves...naturally.

This goes back to the entire Linux vs Windows question, where the thing people complain about is the idea of only having one system (Windows) where they can't make any of the decisions concerning the operating system for themselves.
To me it makes a lot more sense if you don't just have Windows OR Linux, but rather that you have Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, the Mac OS, AmigaDOS, and so on, and if they all have their attendant fan/developer base. That way each system has it's particular use or area of strengths, and work continues on developing others for other uses as well. It also means that the user is free to choose what he/she thinks is the best system for the task at hand. Things get done, people are happy, freedom is maintained, and the world keeps turning. ;-)

If you have a singular or monolithic model, this doesn't happen...instead we very often get saddled with frozen, unchanging dinosaurs. Is this really what we want?

I thought everyone used Kazaa

[bushboy]

I can't remember the last time I ever considered Gnutella as an operable and useful P2P application.

It was a mission to connect and even more of a problem to actually download useful content !

Unless you were a l33t bandwidth wh0r3, it remains to this day, a useless p2p application.

Kazaa on the other hand actually works !
On a low bandwidth pipe, you can still obtain large files, even if it takes you a week to do it.

Re:I thought everyone used Kazaa

[0x0d0a]

I can't remember the last time I ever considered Gnutella as an operable and useful P2P application.

Try gtk-gnutella out of CVS. Gnutella these days is a very, very different beast from what it once was (thanks to lots of work on the part of the GDF), and its performance is *far* better than it once was.

The reason Kazaa doesn't work for everyone is because it's the last remaining closed P2P protocol. Linux folks can't clone it (and it's extremely difficult to reverse engineer the authentication stuff) because of that, so Kazaa isn't available for Linux.

I've found that Napster for music, eDonkey for large files works pretty well.

I wish more people used oggs, though...

Re:I thought everyone used Kazaa

[elmegil]

only if you count 5 billion copies of Britney as "many many times more".

Re:I thought everyone used Kazaa

[Shade, The]

Um, I'd say his point is that Kazaa only works on Windows. If a person does not use Windows, then they can't use Kazaa, and therefore it's not a choice for some people. How difficult is this to understand? Therefore some people are doubtless interested in Gnutella. Especially since it's gotten quite a bit better, recently.

Gtk-gnutella works quite nicely, I've found. Downloaded all of Trigun and half of Hack Sign from there so far. I even managed to find some Maaya Sakamoto MP3s. Not that I downloaded them, for that would be illegal and bad. *Ahem*. Anyway, the only Anime I couldn't find reliably was Outlaw Star, so I grabbed that from IRC.

Re:I thought everyone used Kazaa

[peter_gzowski]

I've found that Napster for music, eDonkey for large files works pretty well.

I assume you mean KaZaA for music...

Just a few comments on your comment. KaZaA (Lite) works in Linux under Wine. The KaZaA Lite site even links to instructions on how to get it working. The fact that KaZaA is a closed protocol is not the reason it doesn't work for everyone. No one program is going to work for everyone. KaZaA works for most people I know, from the indie rock fans, to the hip-hop fans, to the jazz fans.

eDonkey is good for large files, albeit slow. I've been using BitTorrent for a lot of my large files (the latest buffy and anime fansubs) lately, although I don't know if this counts as P2P.

I took your advice and grabbed gtk-gnutella (there was a recent release, so I didn't see the need to get the CVS). I'll have to use it some more, but it seems like the same old beast to me. Will give it some more time, though.

Re:I thought everyone used Kazaa

[einer]

Um, I'd say his point is that Kazaa only works on Windows. If a person does not use Windows, then they can't use Kazaa, and therefore it's not a choice for some people. How difficult is this to understand?

Kazaa Lite runs under wine.

How does one "block" hostile clients?

[McCart42]

I would think that it would be fairly trivial to get past any blocks of a certain P2P agent (with an upgrade of the software, that is)...is there some information about the protocol that makes each client unique, and constantly so; i.e., upgrades to the software cannot change this identifying bit of the protocol for the client?

Re:How does one "block" hostile clients?

[1nv4d3r]

Any client can lie in the next upgrade, so a good option is usually to block based on behavior. In other words, no matter what client you claim to be, if you send me more than x requests/second for longer than y minutes, you're disconnected.

The other benefit of rules like this is that you don't discriminate one bad client; you discriminate against actions that hurt the network. As long as it plays nice any client is fine.

This guy is a developer?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the GDF:

"......You could have just left it alone...but unfortunately you decided to have yourself added to the...
[flames=on]
RETARD LIST! YOU F#$@ING IMBECILE! I DONT EVEN NEED TO ARGUE ON THE MERITS WITH YOU, BECAUSE YOU ARE THE **ONLY** JACKASS WHO OFFERRED TO IMPLEMENT G2 BEFORE THE SPECS WERE RELEASED! GUESS WHAT DUDE! YOUR CLIENT SUCKS A BIG FAT DONKEY'S DICK! NO WONDER MORPHEUS DUMPED IT LIKE THE STEAMING HALF COILED TURD THAT IT IS!
[flames=off]......."

This guy is a developer? That's pathetic, this looks like something a ten year old posted.

If you are wondering what client he is speaking of, he is talking about Gnucleus.

Re:This guy is a developer?

[grumpygrodyguy]

This guy is a developer? That's pathetic, this looks like something a ten year old posted.

Maybe he's a ten year old developer.

Re:This guy is a developer?

[Anenga]

No, they are childish and unwarrented. There aren't any excuses for that behavior.

If the GDF would of acted mature in reaction to Gnutella2 when it was first proposed to the GDF, then this would of never of happened. Gnutella2 would of replaced Gnutella1 and remained "Gnutella". Or at least the GDF could of discussed G2 in a technical context, which did not happen.

No "hard work" was stolen. Shareaza did not use GUESS in any way to create G2, so I hope that's not what your implying. Sure, G2 uses some things discussed within the GDF. But anybody can suggest concepts, but it's not as easy when you go and try to code it in.

Look at GUESS. How long was that discussed? Now that's dropped for "Outdegree", something Gnutella2 came up with.

The GDF needs to let their death-grip of the Gnutella throne go and accept Mike as a legitimate contributer trying to help.

Re:This guy is a developer?

[Visceral Monkey]

This guy acts like an ass all the time apparently. If you consider that he's trying to make money with his software you soon realize he's cheesed because this other guy came in and scooped him and the other sleeping beauties on several features. Where they came from really isn't important, they fact he did it in record time without co-towing to them is what set him off more than anything else. More power to those who innovate and actually get something done rather than talking about it forever. If the other guys can out innovate/feature this guy's client then I'd support them; it's all about the best working client. So slap a tampon between your legs, stop crying like a woman and get busy guys.

unfortunately...

[rebelcool]

kazaa cannot locate 90% of the rare music i look for.

If you want popular or semi-popular things, kazaa works well. For rare things, you might, if lucky, find one person somewhere who has it and it almost always returns 'Needs more sources'.

Vinnie is a pathetic troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's what happened today on the Gnutella Developers Forum

Vinnie says Shareaza is damaging the Gnutella network. Well, his own words are blackening the public's view of ALL Gnutella developers. He himself should be banned from Gnutella, period.

Consider this: most people do not visit the GDF group. So when Vinnie makes an ass out of himself, most people just see his words, and assume that he represents all the other Gnutella developers. People see Vinnie flaming, spewing insults left and right. What are people supposed to think?

Vinne, it\'s alright to make points such as "Shareaza is flooding the network with requests." But when you say things such as "YOU ARE A F#$@ING MORON YOU GODDAMNED SON OF A WHORE," you have gone way past the line.

"I've tried being civil"
If such behavior is what you define as civil...

"I suggest other developers "
Wait, Vinnie, you make it sound like you represent the WHOLE Gnutella community. However, this statement makes it sound like there hasn't been a complete agreement yet, and that this is more your own personal opinion. Has an official decision been made or not?

"YOUR CLIENT SUCKS A BIG FAT DONKEY'S DICK!"
So this is what Gnutella developers are like? Freely bashing other people's work and insulting them when all they have done is try to improve the network. I guess I'll make sure to avoid Gnutella developers at all costs, they sound nasty. Or maybe it's just Vinnie.

Last question: why have I not negatively responded to Adam Fisk? Because he has been civil. You have not.

lost end-user focus

[1nv4d3r]

When did we lose focus on creating the greatest Porn2Pr0n system possible?

These guys should stop bickering and ask themselves every day:
- How can gnutella deliver more pr0n, faster, with more accurate search results?

I know I do, and I don't even develop P2P systems.

I think that it's reasonable, though

[0x0d0a]

For a protocol where the peers matter so much, Gnutella works surprisingly well. That's been because the developers worked together very much to keep things going properly and sharing improvements ahead of time to let everyone adapt.

Shareaza broke that.

It doesn't really *matter* as much as these people make it out to be, because almost nobody *uses* the damn client, but it's really stupid that they took the "Gnutella 2" name, which really is deserved by the coalition of developers that shared and worked together.

Re:I think that it's reasonable, though

[Wonko42]

Shareaza broke nothing. Have you used Shareaza? It has an excellent implementation of both Gnutella 0.6 (which every other client uses) and its own Gnutella2 protocol. You can use them both at the same time, meaning that you're a part of both networks. Nothing is being broken. Other Gnutella users get the benefit of your file collection (and vice versa), and other Shareaza users get the same benefit but without the scaling issues (and vice versa).

Of course it was a daft move for Mike to call it Gnutella2, but so what? The guy had written a damn good protocol based on Gnutella, and a rose, by any other name, is still a goddamn rose.

Re:I think that it's reasonable, though

[Herr_Nightingale]

Gnutella is broken, as anybody comparing FastTrack to (your choice of Gnutella servant here) can attest. It's slow, downloads have a completion rate that is barely usable, and even advances like swarmed downloads don't work very well. Here, try this.. Kazaa Lite is the clean version of Kazaa. Then try this. Limewire is relatively popular, and wholly commercial.
You can post your findings here.

I've tried Shareaza too, and it's faster and has a nicer interface than the other Gnutella servants. It's not, however, on a level with Kazaa yet.
You'll notice that this whole debate over the legitimacy of Gnutella2 (or Mike's Protocol, as Vinnie likes to call it) has two distinct sides: on the one hand, you've got the COMMERCIAL developers, including Vinnie Falco, LimeWire, and Xolox; on the other hand, you've got Mike Stokes and Gnucleus.

What this article fails to mention is that the registration of Gnutella2.com is the real issue at stake. The commercial interests are pissy because they've been one-upped by an upstart, as they see it.

Gnutella 2 is deservedly named, and clearing away the cruft was the only way to improve Gnutella. Mike Stokes clobbered the adware vendors with Shareaza, and did what they were all afraid to do: start fresh, start clean, and start out on a level with the current state of the art P2P applications currently available. I applaud the guy for having such guts. He registered the name, and he deserves to keep it. F*ck the spyware perpetrators.

ShareReactor.

[Grendel Drago]

One word.

ShareReactor.

Complete, well-ripped releases. Most of the good stuff is in the forums. Sure, it's slow during peak hours, but that's a small price to pay for knowing that everything will arrive, intact, full quality, checksummed.

Also, eMule is a really nice-looking client.

--grendel drago

Re:ShareReactor.

[Ashran]

One word: Usenet
Nuff said

Re:ShareReactor.

[soupdevil]

eMule is not a bad client, and currently there's a lot of interesting content on the donkey network. But central servers will be the death of any P2P network. FastTrack is already secretly negotiating the terms of their own demise with Hollywood. The donkey network will be next.

Only serverless p2p has a chance to survive long enough to develop enough non-infringing users to withstand the lawsuits. Right now Gnutella, Gnutella 2 and Overnet are our only choices. My money (and my own content) is on G2.

Check out www.leeware.com for non-infringing content available through the G2 network. And check out www.sharelive.com for a G2 site similar to ShareReactor.

Oth.net

[Grendel Drago]

For really weird or rare stuff, I check out oth.net. It's a search engine for ratio FTP sites. Some of them are scams. Ignore these. Also good for music videos.

--grendel drago

So have you used it?

[soupdevil]

Mike may be young and naive, and a bit arrogant. But Shareaza is the most robust, feature-filled Gnutella client there is, and he did it all by himself. That's impressive.

FastTrack is proprietary and under attack, the donkey depends on central servers and Gnutella is stagnant. Assuming Mike releases the specs this month (as he's promised), we'll have an open source, server-free, super-scaling, global searching P2P network. We've never had one, and that's exciting.

The fact that Shareaza is free as in beer and free as in of-spyware/addware is just a bonus.

Is there another free client?

[Jay Maynard]

I use Shareaza because it doesn't bundle any adware, doesn't bundle any spyware, and doesn't do anything but file sharing. BearShare still has adware in it. Are there other clients that don't include the crap and still provide the function? (And no, I haven't touched the timeout settings, nor do I intend to.)

FWIW, BearShare's complaining seems motivated at least in part by the fact that Shareaza is out there potentially taking away its revenues...

Re:Is there another free client?

[NathanBFH]

I don't know about Xolox or BearShare, but Limewire is open source, and the cvs version does not contain adware. http://www.limewire.org if you are interested. It's not as convienient as just downloading from the website, obviously, but it does get you an ad-free version of the client.

what a soap opera!

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with Gnutella and GDF is that it's a true soap opera with a few developers, that do not like each other that much. Well, as long as e.g. Bearshare can take control and distribute it's spyware, all of it's own proprietary extensions or seperation of the Gnutella network were fine. There are so many selfish facts and quotes from GDF developers in the past... I can't take them serious anymore! For example read what "holly" Bearshare developer states:

Vinnie (who owns gnutella3.com) has said that Bearshare will be "moving forward with our own proprietary Gnutella 3 technology". He has also stated that "Our goal is not to block Shareaza from the network, but rather to give their users the worst possible experience so they will stop using the application. I'll leave it up to your imagination as for the methods we will employ". Some reports say that a block may already be in place in the latest version of Bearshare.

From http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=90

Civil war among Gnutella developers is not somthing new!
Every good client hiting Gnutella was usually accused being bad or crap. Once it was Phex, then Xolox, today it's Shareaza. Even well integrated features like 'swarmed downloading' were once rated "bad" from those developers who didn't have it in their own clients - now it's standard in every client. Bearshare has a long tradition of hidden features (not available to other vendors) or in suddenly blocking one competitor. Is there any Gnutella client that wasn't blocked or bitched in the past? I doubt that.

It's a long history of bitching against each other... not efficient work but indeed amusing. New ideas on the GDF looks more like "eat it or die" than a detailed and productive discussion. Other ideas are optimized for marketing instead for technology... Limewire decided to call it's superpeer concept "Ultrapeer" to make it look better than other P2P systems (even though it wasn't even reliabale - is it today or does it need more patches called GUESS2, GUESS3 HYPERMEGAGUESS?).

Of course there are exception! I'd like to name two: For exmaple one open source developer, John from Gnucleus, has written lines and lines of free code. Continously implementing new features while at the same time avoiding (the worst) GDF fights. For example, the Gnutella protocol documentation at http://rfc-gnutella.sourceforge.net/ mainly from Tor Klingberg & Raphael Manfredi - which was started long after the big ones had there userbase already (no papers prolly to keep new developers away and to increase greedy spyware businees plans? *asking*). I hope those guys and also Shareaza keep their motivation to innovate and help the Gnutella community. For those who believe the latest Bearwire hype (Bearwire = Bearshare + Limewire business alliance), I suggest speak with some other developers.... log on to irc.p2pchat.net ... AFAIK some Gnutella clients run a home channel there and you can meet develoepers as well.

I recomend to read the GDF archives and please poste some of the most funniest quote. Let's make a Gnutella soap opera best of. :)

Greets, Mark

PS: I wonder why Xolox sneaks to the side of Bearshare and Limewire. strange. well, must be one rules of a true soap opera: suprising changes or dead twin brothers popping up from nowhere.

This is how MS is going to conquer P2P

[thehunger]

In 6-12 months from now, if anybody asks how Microsoft managed to conquer the P2P marked so fast, simply point them back to this thread to show them the state of quibbling between all the other players.

What they should have done is gang up against Microsoft with open standards and inventive forward thinking and not simply try to use P2P as a scheme to get rich quickly.

My Experience

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to use Limewire all the time, but it was written in Java so it was (a) slow and (b) had its own set of menu/window widgets, which made it a pain to use. The only files I ever found were popular music that I didn't need, Futurama episodes (okay - that part was good), and faked porn files that had links to paysites encoded inside.

I switch to Shareaza. It's small. First thing I notice is that the user interface is GREAT. Seriously, you have to be smoking crack to think its user interface is bad. It keeps me informed about my searches, uses the OS' native widgets, is FAST and best of all, I have never seen so many responses to my searches. Whether that is becuase of "Gnutella2" or something else I don't know, and don't care. When you're trying to download movies of Anna Ohura at 3am, you want what works, it's that simple.

And Shareaza doesn't include spyware crap.

Anyone ever heard of Gnucleus?

[MrChris007]

I can't believe that when I searched the list of replies to this article there is no mention of Gnucleus. Not only is it open source, but there is not spyware or anoying pop-up ads in the program. I have used quite a few different Gnutella clients and I have found gnucleus to be one of the better. Sadly, they don't have a linux verison, but you can get the source and probably figure out a way to make it work on Linux or you could just run it in on linux using a windows emulator like Wine.

Timing.

[Grendel Drago]

Well... NNTP servers cost money, at least decent ones do. Also, there's the retention problem. What, you wanted last year's Buffy episodes? Sorry, those have been swept off the server for months now. ShareReactor releases may occasionally lack sources, but ask on the forum and someone will reshare. Anything on the mainpage will have sources, even if it's months old.

--grendel drago

Mike's response

[soupdevil]

Check out this thread on Shareaza's forum if you want to read Mike's thoughtful response to Vinnie.

http://www.shareaza.com/forum/viewthread.aspx?ID =5 138

Re:Bittorrent

[Anenga]

The problem with BitTorrent is that it's system is flawed. When you close the window after downloading, your not sharing anymore. Thus people often find they can download 80% of the file and can't ever get the rest. Thus, only downloading 0day releases within a few days of their release is only when BitTorrent works well.

Also, you can't search on BitTorrent. You have to find websites to download from. If the website gets shut down, so does the ability to get the files.

Re:Bittorrent

[harmonica]

Thus, only downloading 0day releases within a few days of their release is only when BitTorrent works well.

True (from my limited experience), but it still is p2p, even if it is specialized.

Also, you can't search on BitTorrent. You have to find websites to download from. If the website gets shut down, so does the ability to get the files.

Yes, but again, BT is a specialized p2p tool, not flawed. It cannot (and probably never wanted to) replace protocols like those used with Freenet or Gnutella.

The design goal was to make big files available to a relatively large number of people who know exactly what they want, with everyone participating in sharing the load.

But you made me think about a definition of p2p. I would probably come up with something very general.

A slide I found suggests that there is no consensus on the term. searchNetworking has a more precise definition. Hm, I'll do some reading...