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[ox] Gnutella



Hi all,

steckt wer mehr in der Gnutella-Szenerie? Ich bin auf
http://www.applelinks.com/articles/2000/11/20001106121634.shtml
gestoßen und fand das doch wieder sehr spannend. Auszüge hänge ich
an diese Mail (sorry, ist englisch). Jetzt, wo Napster einen Deal
mit der Musikindustrie gemacht hat, rückt Gnutella ins Rampenlicht.
Für mich hat Gnutella Chrakteristika einer "Killerapplikation" -
wenn's denn funzt.

Ciao,
Stefan

+++

Gnutella A Possible Successor To Napster Gone Legit 

Monday, November 6, 2000

By Applelinks Contributing Editor Charles W. Moore

With the Napster MP3 file-sharing service apparently headed for a
subscription fee-based business model as a result of its deal with
BMI, die-hard free music fans are looking for alternatives. One such
is Gnutella,the 900 pound Gorilla of file-sharing software.

Described by its developers as "a new network for a new Internet,
Gnutella: 
? Works on a peer to peer network 
? Can operate on any port. 
? Has no centralized server. 
? Can transfer files of any type, size, or origin. 
? Is open source under the terms of the GNU public license 

Because of these characteristics, Gnutella has tremendous potential
for free exchange of information -- not only music, but any sort of
digital file. Fast and effecient, Gnutella can not be blocked by the
traditional means used against Napster. Each user is connected to
other users, who in turn pass along the other hosts on the network.
It is far more useful than Napster, as it can transfer .zip, .mpeg,
.asf, .mov, .qt, .hqx, .exe, .jar, .sit, or any other type of file
users put online. Gnutella makes it much easier to find files than
say, Hotline, or the WWW, as you are searching for specific
filenames and types over a network of thousands of individual users.
Because Gnutella is open source, it is freely distributed,
constantly improving, and available on virtually any platform. 

Gnutella shares features of ftp, hotline and Napster, but holds one
distinct advantage over all of them; its pure a peer to peer
networking. There is no central sever to connect to. Every user is
both a host and a client. Because of this, it is near impossible for
ISPs, governments, hackers to disable the network. Gnutella can be
used to transfer any type of file, and there are no passwords, no
fees, and no rules. Each GnutellaNet client can share files, search
for files, and download files from any other user.

Gnutella was developed by the software corporation Nullsoft
(creators of windows Mp3 programs WinAMP and Spinner). However, they
never released a public version of the program because their parent
corperation America Online declared the work an "unauthorized
freelance project". As such, it was scrapped at version .48, a
working beta. However, the beta had already been distributed for
testing to a few hundred people, and since it was open-source, could
legally be reverse engineered to create clones of the original idea. 

There are now several Gnutella clones for just about every operating
system in just about every programming language. While most are
still in beta, the developers say that the network is strong, the
client is usable, and the concept is unbeatable. 

Its advocates claim that Gnutella as a protocol and as a program is
100% legal (so far), constitutionally protected, and as moral as
trading recipes with a neighbor. One suspects that claim may
eventually be tested in the courts, as Napster's recent travails
indicate, but the fact that there are no central servers may well
make it difficult to get lawsuits to stick in this case (said as a
complete legal layman). 

-- 
  Gewerkschaft Handel, Banken und Versicherungen
  HA II, Abteilung Datenverarbeitung
  Kanzlerstr. 8, 40472 Duesseldorf
--
  stefan.meretz hbv.org
  maintaining: http://www.hbv.org
  private stuff: http://www.meretz.de
--

_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.de/
Organisation: projekt oekonux.de



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