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BitTorrent for Content Providers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the but-it's-per-se-bad-don't-you-realize dept.

snuvlorgin writes "ibiblio.org has entered the fray, launching an enhanced BitTorrent site. Among the torrent offerings (all legal) are Linux kernels, distros, Project Gutenberg texts, and the ibiblio Speaker Series, which includes videos of talks by Larry Lessig, Robin Miller, and Dan Gillmor. ibiblio developed and open sourced the Osprey and Permaseed software to make BitTorrent seeding reliable, persistent, and suitable for large-scale content providers. Yes, you can find these torrents later."

24 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Great Idea for alternative content by Thanatopsis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Great idea. It legitimizes BitTorrent as a protocol and it makes find some great content easy. Torrents On!

    --

    Thalasar
    1. Re:Great Idea for alternative content by bhtooefr · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Because that would require more centralization, which is a Bad Idea(tm) when you're trying to mitigate the load. You have to have a port open to accept incoming connections directly.

    2. Re:Great Idea for alternative content by kwark · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Why can't these people design a protocol more like HTTP? Both the data and control packets can go out over a single TCP port and it's very easy to proxy.
      You did read the protocol? Since this is exactly how peers communicate!
      The problem your transfers are slow is because you can't connect to enough peers (which can be fixed by either party by being connectable by either unblocking or forwarding a port).
  2. Let's see. by Poromenos1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hopefully with this companies will start to use BT as an alternative to http/ftp. The downside is that you have to have a client, but I bet that browsers will have integrated BT support soon (the new Opera does, FF has a plugin). And the savings for the server range from a LOT to none, and even none can't hurt, since if nothing else you at least have a great download client able to resume downloads, download huge files, etc.

    --
    Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
    1. Re:Let's see. by Poromenos1 · · Score: 2, Informative

      And the tracker has great stats for everything, from downloads to bytes transferred between peers.

      --
      Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
    2. Re:Let's see. by aywwts4 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Shut your face, as someone who is actually still stuck on dialup I find your comments offensive and insensitive; you know full well on your dialup days the downloads you attempt would have taken weeks. And even try to liken it to our suffering when you see speeds in the lower half of a hundred K that might take a couple of hours. For Shame Good sir, For Shame.

      (Yeah, I'm planning on suing the government and AT&T for retributions for the hardships and suffering our modem bound people have had to endure.)


      Seriously though, the answer to the rare file dilemma is that the website that is hosting the torrents needs to have a server running Bittorent and all the files with intelligent prioritizing of the worst seeded files. So when there are other people to take the load the website can outsource it, when its rare the website will have to share the burden like it would have had to via http anyways.

      --
      Web Developers: Celebrate to our roots! Animated Gifs and Tiled Backgrounds, dont let our history die!
    3. Re:Let's see. by TeknoHog · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Hopefully with this companies will start to use BT as an alternative to http/ftp. The downside is that you have to have a client

      As opposed to http and ftp, which somehow magically work without a client ;)

      Seriously though, something like BT plugin in Firefox would probably help a lot.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  3. More widespread support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Excellent, now maybe stupid Radford University will stop blocking ports 6800-6900. Seriously, BitTorrent needs all the legitimate support it can get if it is not to be grouped together with "illegitimate P2P traffic"
    --
    Fairfax Underground: Public message board for residents of Fairfax County, VA

    1. Re:More widespread support by Bri3D · · Score: 2, Informative

      You can set BT to whatever port you want, so I don't see that as a problem.

  4. From off the starboard bow... by abscondment · · Score: 2, Informative

    Why wouldn't you just change the port you're using?

    1. Re:From off the starboard bow... by Jeremi · · Score: 2, Funny
      Why wouldn't you just change the port you're using?


      As a reasonably intelligent Slashdotter, you would. As anyone else, you would answer that question with a blank look that says: "port? What's a port? All I know is my download didn't work."

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  5. /.ed? by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 3, Funny

    Finally, a Slashdotting that's a good thing.

  6. Re:I love IBiblio! by jmcharry · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ibiblio also hosts the streaming audio for a number of NC public and student radio stations. It is a great service, and if bittorrent can reduce a bit of its server load so it can do even more, great!

    Ibiblio is the former sunsite, and has been a major contributor to the Internet for years.

  7. Re:Peachy by tacarat · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just in case Peachy's discouraged anyone from trying to submit their homebrew distrobution to Ibiblio.

    From Ibiblio.org
    ---------------
    Contributing to ibiblio.org
    If you are interested in becoming an ibiblio.org contributor:

          1. Read the Collection Criteria to see if your interest will be served by working with us
          2. Check out the services we offer contributors to see if we have what you need.
          3. Hint: very few, if any, proprietary services will be provided, but many open source solutions are, can or will be offered on request.
          4. Drop a note to help@ibiblio.org telling us:

            * What your project will be
            * What services you might wish to use
            * How to contact you by phone (so we can work out any details and passwords)
            * Anything else you think might be helpful
    ---------------

    One of the main things to be considered is keeping things up to date and making some sort of contribution to the public. It (should) be a given that the bigger distros will be properly maintained, as a good homebrew distro should, but a homebrew which is only a minor modification to an existing distro may not make the cut. If you've got a great modification, maybe you should see if it's more practical to distribute the modified packages instead of an entire distro.

    --
    "Common sense will be the death of us all"
  8. PLEASE PLEASE by xmorg · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I am sick to death of waiting for fileplanet/etc downloads. Or the dreaded "Sorry there are already 500 users logged into this ftp server. Im like, dude... wheres the torrent???

    1. Re:PLEASE PLEASE by Kimos · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I am sick to death of waiting for fileplanet/etc downloads. Or the dreaded "Sorry there are already 500 users logged into this ftp server. Im like, dude... wheres the torrent???
      FilePlanet and others like them won't switch to torrents. If they make you wait in a queue they not only get to put ads on your screen for the entire time you wait, but they hope to get you to pay for instant member access. If the torrents could just be distributed without their strict control their business model would fail.
  9. Science Content and Torrent by kkamrani · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I would like to see the scientific journals, especially The Public Library of Science (PLoS) http://www.plos.org/ start distributing their montly publications over Bit Torrent. There have been occasions of downloading their 150mb journals where there servers and bandwidth were clearly overwhelmed. It would, in my opnion, be a great front to publicize excellent and FREE scientific articles as well as popularize and legitmize bit torrent as a cost effective and fast way to distribute content.

    --
    Anthropology.net - Beyond bones and stones.
  10. Download time increased!? by grahamsz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My personal experiences suggest that a well seeded torrent downloads much faster than an equivilent http download.

    For whatever reason i struggle to max out my 3MB pipe from anywhere but the fastest servers, yet with bittorrent i can get damn close on most transfers.

    The biggest hinderence (that i see) to bittorrent is that you need to have a listner port open for good performance.

  11. Re:Much as I like... by forkazoo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Find some things like:
      Clifford Lynch: Speech on Scholarly Communications

    And write a friendly note to your IT staff explaining that you seem to be having trouble getting it, apparently because the ports are blocked. Explain that it is relavent academic material that you need to consult. (Try to find something specific to your major, and with an academic title.) Whenever you run across something like this that has legitimate scholarly merit that is relevant to your courseload, write another friendly note explaining how you need access to it.

    Don't be abuse, don't be whiny, don't try to convince them you are smart or well informed. Policy is never decided by such a pissing contest. You would just be ignored. Just make polite, courteous explanations that you need legitimate access to specific resources.

    They may or may not decide that the benefits outweigh the trouble. In this case, try to find a proxy to pass through...

  12. Re:I love IBiblio! by Sayan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Thanks for your support! I can tell you it feels just as great working there.

    --
    resurrect my .sig
  13. Federal government bans bittorrent by Danathar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Where I work bittorrent is classified as a Peer to Peer software in the same grouping as Kazza, Morpheus, ect....so the offical policy is that you are not allowed to use bittorrent FOR ANYTHING unless you have permission from the CIO.

    On an upside those that have broken the rules are people who were downloading LINUX distros and no action was taken.

    My point being I REALLY hope that bittorrent becomes an offical specified file transfer protocol. It might seperate it from the rest of the peer to peer crap that's tarnishing bittorrents legitimate use.

    1. Re:Federal government bans bittorrent by ndansmith · · Score: 2, Funny

      I can see it now:
      torrent://symphonyos.com/torrents/symphonyos-alp ha4-release.torrent

  14. Re:Will this make it easier to give back? by perchr · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you want a CLI tool for seeding, you could try libTorrent. It works great, uses little memory and is free

  15. Re:Too bad there aren't any fricking seeds by snuvlorgin · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's not immediately obvious, but S=seeds, P=peers, and PS=permaseeds. The key is that torrents don't go seedless when there are zero regular seeds. A permaseed keeps the torrent alive.