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Replacing TCP?
olau writes "TCP, the transfer protocol that most of the Internet is using, is getting old. These guys have invented an alternative that combines UDP with rateless erasure codes, which means that packets do not have to be resent. Cool stuff! It also has applications for peer-to-peer networks (e.g. for something like BitTorrent). They are even preparing RFCs! The guy who started it, Petar Maymounkov, is of Kademlia fame."
The submitter says that TCP is getting old, but does that really tell us anything about how well it does its job?
TCP is old, but that doesn't mean it's bad or replacement is due. Some shortcomings have surfaced and been adressed. For the most part, TCP does a good job at what it was designed to do.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Because then you're going to have the suits trying to push it down, no matter how great/useful it is in an effort to kill the possibility of coming out with something that could make pirating any easier or more efficient. That's the only way they're going to see it.
It's good to see innovation though, nonetheless.
It appears that they get better performance than TCP by considering (all - 1) the issues. Basically, their protocol works and performs better than TCP because the pipes have spare capacity. If the pipes were at capacity, their protocol would break down. TCP has been designed to be robust in all conditions. Protocols like this that rely on "in most cases we can get away with allowing more errors than TCP does" are not going to replace TCP.