Slashdot Mirror
RSS And BitTorrent, Together At Last
eoyount writes "Wired has an interesting story about a really simple idea I wish I had thought of. Transferring large files across the Internet isn't easy for your average joe, but a combination of RSS and BitTorrent technology might just make it easier - Slashdot ran a previous story on the theoretical blending last year." (LegalTorrents is run by the strangely familiar simoniker, who wrote a short piece on the O'Reilly Network about how it was set up, and offers observations on how well the combination fares.) Update: 03/17 21:45 GMT by T : Ernest Miller submits two related postings he's written on RSS+BitTorrent, a combination he calls "broadcatching."
Many ISPs and college campuses block P2P ports, BitTorrent included. I'm not sure that 'news' is a compelling enough reason to have many (or any) of them change their policies.
Trolling is a art,
...but in that case, you're no worse off than before. And realistically, if there's some huge download I'll usually just start it before I head to bed. Of course, if you're sitting there counting down the seconds until it's done, that's different...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
No, because if someone downloading a 100MB patch uploads even 10 MB during their BT session and closes it right after it's downloaded, that's still 10 MB the main servers don't have to send. Take Blizzard for example. Right now, their company's servers have to send 100% of the patch files. With BT, if they can cut that to 50% or even 80%, that's a huge benefit.
When you don't think of it in terms of people uploading movie files, and think in terms of companies using the technology to ease load on their web servers, now you're looking at BT the way the author intended!
You seem to believe that 'corporations' should pay whatever it takes to upgrade their servers and bandwidth in order to give you decent download times for free. Heh. If BT lets me get fast download times at the cost of using some of my mostly idle upload bandwidth, I think its a great idea.
As for ISPs metering bandwidth, guess what, you have to pay for what you use anyway, otherwise the ISP doesn't stay in business. It doesn't matter whether its metered or a fixed $30 or $60 / month. It has to cover their costs. If you're complaining that your cost would go up with metering, its because you think that you use a lot more bandwidth then everyone else. So you're just trying to shift the costs to the people that don't use as much. Pot, meet kettle.