RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Napster alternatives

[Rick Buford <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Couldn't some clever person create an LDAP database for this sort of thing?

Rick 

-----Original Message-----
From: EMAIL:PROTECTED
[mailto:EMAIL:PROTECTED]On Behalf Of McNutt, Justin
M.
Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 11:59 AM
To: EMAIL:PROTECTED
Subject: RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Napster alternatives


> > Most of the Napster variants are just different front-ends to the
> > official Napster service.  A very few use the same protocol and
> > command set, but allow you to change to a different database server.
> 
> 
> I thought there was something out there that would allow the 
> user to break
> away from the centralization problem.  No?  If all users have 
> to connect
> to a central database to access the service, the government can always
> shut them down.

And that's the catch.  Peer-to-peer file sharing has been going on as long
as we've had the Internet.  It's called FTP.  The advent of the Web made it
even easier.

The problem is resource LOCATION.  How do you find what you're looking for?
You always come back to this common problem.  Do you use some sort of chatty
polling protocol to actively search for potential sources, or do you try to
be efficient and have agents that hold lists of sources who have registered
with the agent (centralized).

DNS is a good example of a middle ground (distributed database), but is
there really a hierarchical way to classify files and/or assign authority
for them the way DNS does?  Any such design would have to be more flexible
than that (or operate along different lines, using the same methods).

--J
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