Jeroen Bekkers sites a report on a Microsoft memo on file sharing. It reminds me that I should clarify this post a bit. The FUD surrounding P2P that I need to dispell is that P2P is all one thing. I explain Groove to people and they say, "oh, so its like Napster". Well, no, its really not at all like Napster. Sure, I can put copyrighted material in a shared space, but it doesn't have the same effect of putting it in Napster. There is no globally searchable index of all the content. The difference is that I'm in complete control over who gets that content, so I know who I'm file sharing with. With programs like Napster, or Kaaza, I'm just letting any random person syphon data from my computer. Its a fundementally different model. Yes, its still an application of P2P, but then, so is Grid computing. So is Windows Networking for that matter.
The irony is that when we were still working on Groove in secret one of our concerns was that we wouldn't be able to explain the concept because it was so new. Then Napster blossomed and we thought, wow, this is good because we don't have to explain the whole thing every time. We can say something like, "Groove is kind of like Napster but for businesses". Whoops. That's not quite right now, is it? I guess my other point is that enabling technology doesn't mean that its used illegally. There is nothing stopping me from recording my own music on an mp3 and putting in Napster so share it with the world. The same thing happened when the Internet starting getting huge. We heard all kinds of people in Washington saying, "the Internet is bad and should be censored because of all the porn". It sad to see us repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
P2P means I'm connecting directly to the computer that I'm sharing information with, and its an efficient topology for certain activities. In Groove it offers many advantages by creating a totally adaptive and decentralized network. In the client server paradigm, Napster is like me putting mp3 files on a public ftp server and Groove would be like me emailing some friends my mp3 files. How the file gets from point A to point B shouldn't be the focus of this whole copyright issue.
9:00:14 PM
Dave has some more excellent points on the proposed bill to hack your PC. I can't believe this will fly. And I agree with Dave that its technically far fetched. Anything you could implement will be blocked by freeware that I'll help develop if needed!
2:03:20 PM
Sam Gentile is looking for a job. I had the pleasure of working with Sam for the past few months, and its been a real treat. He has been one of the driving forces behind our VS.NET integration product. I learned a lot from him during many random conversations on a wide variety of subjects. He has been an inspiration and a refreshing voice in our company. If you need someone who is totally on top of their game hire this guy quick! There simply aren't very many people this good in the world.
1:52:19 PM
CNN reports on a new bill proposed that will allow media companies to "hack" P2P networks such as Napster:
The bill would permit recording companies and other copyright holders to hack onto networks to thwart users looking to download free music
This is ludicrous. First of all, its a real drag that the term "P2P" is becoming synonymous with piracy. This ZDNet article is another case in point. As soon as two computers exchange information they are essentially P2P. Basically a server is a peer that is always available, right? Also, how would a law like this be implemented? What about completely decentralized architectures like Groove? All our data is encrypted and there is no way that any media company can see that I'm dropping an MP3 file into a shared space. There is no way know where its going (as it should be!) So how will they propose to know this without sniffing around on my computer?
10:15:53 AM
