Political and Technical Implications of GitTorrent

lkcl writes "The GitTorrent Protocol (GTP) is a protocol for collaborative git repository distribution across the Internet. Git promises to be a distributed software management tool, where a repository can be distributed. Yet, the mechanisms used to date to actually 'distribute,' such as ssh, are very much still centralized. GitTorrent makes Git truly distributed. The initial plans are for reducing mirror loading, however the full plans include totally distributed development: no central mirrors whatsoever. PGP signing (an existing feature of git) and other web-of-trust-based mechanisms will take over from protocols on ports (e.g. ssh) as the access control 'clearing house.' The implications of a truly distributed revision control system are truly staggering: unrestricted software freedom. The playing field is leveled in so many ways, as 'The Web Site' no longer becomes the central choke-point of control. Coming just in time for that all-encompassing Free Software revolution hinted at by The Rebellion Against Vista, this article will explain more fully some of the implications that make this quiet and technically brilliant project, GitTorrent, so important to Software Freedom, from both technical and political perspectives."

Comments

Davros, is that you?

[nategoose]

Reread the summary in Davros's voice, in creasing the volume and excitement as you get closer to the end. Come on -- it'll be fun.

This is why people don't take you seriously.

[Anonymous Coward]

The hyperbole makes you look like a frothing idiot.

Re:This is why people don't take you seriously.

[__aasqbs9791]

Well, I'm like an idiot-savant. Except for the savant part. So I guess the frothing part.

Serve Documentation from GitTorrent

[ooglek]

This is cool, your code can be free. But unfortunately you're still stuck with hosting the documentation on a central website of some sort. I'm hopeful someone will whip up a standard for hosting the documentation website. IE PHP + SQlite + GitTorrent docRoot == Distributed website. Now several websites could support any GitTorrent-hosted documentation. Go to any GitTorrentDoc-enabled website, type in the .torrent of the repository, and blam -- the server pulls it down (or has it already cached) and you can page through the fully-dynamic docRoot. Could even contain Trac or something, so all the bug tracking is also in the GitTorrent repository.

Re:Serve Documentation from GitTorrent

[Beached]

Use a GUID instead. There is an RFC http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4122.txt and its the same algorithm Microsoft uses. It's pretty much guaranteed to be unique if everyone follows the same process. They're used everywhere.

Re:Serve Documentation from GitTorrent

[lkcl]

This is cool, your code can be free. But unfortunately you're still stuck with hosting the documentation on a central website of some sort.

no - you're not :) read the article: it mentions that static content such as that generated by ikiwiki could perfectly well be generated by a locally-checked-out (gittorrent-distributed) copy of the documentation

extend that concept a little further (one step at a time!) and you have, as you rightly mention:

a standard for hosting the documentation website. IE PHP + SQlite + GitTorrent docRoot == Distributed website.

yes! although, to be much better, technically, you'd have a distributed SQL server - a peer-to-peer SQL server. there's a project that IngreSQL are keeping an eye on, called "d", that might show some promise, here.

Could even contain Trac or something, so all the bug tracking is also in the GitTorrent repository.

yes!

_now_ you're getting it :)

Re:Serve Documentation from GitTorrent

[PouletFou]

From TFA : The possibilities that GitTorrent opens up are just mind-blowing. Here are a few: * Imagine that an entire project - its web site, documentation, wiki, bug-tracker, source code and binaries are all managed and stored in a peer-to-peer distributed git repository. o To view the web site, you either go to the main site, http://web-site.org/ or, if you are offline or want faster access, you go to the locally checked out copy.

If you ask me....

[Chris Mattern]

...there's too many gits on the internet *now*...

It amuses me

[Reality Master 201]

The hyperventilation notwithstanding, what amuses me most is the fact that the project is currently hosted at Google Code.

Try meditation or something.

Re:Not going to change much

[GCsoftware]

This is a problem in search of a solution.

I believe you meant "solution in search of a problem."

if your product is so useful

[circletimessquare]

you don't need the hype. linking it to the downfall of vista makes us laugh at you

just describe what it does, dryly, concisely, technically. if it is worthy of the hype, we will supply the hype for you

but when you supply the hype, we are inclined to believe there's not much really going on with your project. which might not be true. so change your tone, for your own sake

What exactly have you been smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming just in time for that all-encompassing Free Software revolution hinted at by The Rebellion Against Vista

Can you also point me to where the rainbow-powered unicorn factories are? I imagine they probably exist in the world you seem to live in, you insufferable twit.

Re:Not going to change much

[TheRaven64]

If it involves Git and Bittorrent then I suspect it is actually "two problems in search of a problem".

Re:Why?

[lkcl]

The primary purpose of peer to peer systems are to either avoid censorship or provide lots of cheap/free bandwidth.

the primary purposes _now_ are to avoid censorship and to provide lots of cheap/free bandwidth.

the last major upgrade of debian REDLINED the world's internet backbone infrastructure for a WEEK.

with the total linux usage only being - what... 1% of the world's desktop systems, and debian being a small fraction of that, the debian mirror system are ALREADY creaking under the load.

Neither of these really apply to source code management.

why not?

Hosting is easily sponsored and the files aren't very big anyway. Few projects will face censorship anywhere other than the most regressive regimes (ie, China or the US).

i don't _want_ "sponsorship". i don't _want_ my pet project hosted by a large corporation. i want it completely independent.

i want my web site content hosted and automatically mirrored across the world, along with its bugs database and its wiki all linked together.

i want people in the emerging markets and the third world to be able to have exactly the same kind of luxury that we do - and they DO NOT have "continuous access to the web site or access to the lovely sponsored hosting".

think much bigger and you will start to see why this is so damn important.

Re:Piracy

[compro01]

Observe the Ubuntu website this coming April when they release a new version and see if you still feel that a website is appropriate to the task. The site gets hammered so hard that it's problematic to even get the .torrent files directly from them, nevermind the ISOs, and it's not feasible to have that kind of bandwidth sitting around unused except for a few days every 6 months, nor is it currently feasible to get that much bandwidth on-demand for a website, but bittorrent allows for just that, as you're pooling the bandwidth of everyone downloading it. You can easily gets amounts of bandwidth that would cost tens of thousands of dollars to have in a conventional manner.

Dead project

[nniillss]

Status, according to the project site, http://code.google.com/p/gittorrent/: Currently no-one is actively developing either this developed version or Jonas' C++ implementation.

The last project entries/downloads are from February 2008. Why such a hype over a dead/dormant project?