Stupid server semantic argument (was: Non Linux but network tech question)

[Bill McGonigle]

On Jun 19, 2007, at 13:05, Thomas Charron wrote:

>  No, it isn't.  It isn't a client either.  It's a 'collaborative'
> application, where there isn't a client or a server, just peers which
> send data to each other.

Are we talking about perception or implementation?  At the  
implementation level, Bittorrent is many instances of one type of  
client (that gets the data streams) and typically a single instance  
of the client that chats with the tracker, plus several instances of  
a server which serve out chunks of data to other clients.  This  
collection of clients and servers is perceived as a P2P app, but  
nobody needed to add any new syscalls to linux to make this work.

Perception doesn't have any effect on the Comcast NOC, but it has an  
effect on the ToS the company can get away with.  My point about  
writing P2P apps which use ports 80 and 25 was to effect that impact  
of perception onto the ToS.  It's easier to get lost in the noise if  
everybody else is doing it.

I recognize that everybody's correct about the ToS and their intent,  
however when a monopoly provider of what some might consider an  
essential service has draconian policies and the regulators are  
captured, sometimes a bit of civil disobedience is the right thing to  
do.  Anybody running non-ogg media codecs on linux recognizes this.   
We could argue extensively on another thread which is the right model  
for a well-functioning society and if societal power is on loan from  
the people or derived by the wealth.

On Jun 19, 2007, at 15:59, Ben Scott wrote:

> The fact that BitTorrent
> enables them to get said stuff via distributed, peer-to-peer sharing
> network is an accident; they just want a download.  And that's
> generally the market Comcast is going after.

It may be unbeknownst to them, but it's no accident - it's the reason  
they the content is there in the first place.  Regardless of that,  
Bittorrent has a much larger effect on the Comcast NOC than somebody  
hosting pictures of their kids ever would.  I'm not talking about  
tech support, on purpose.  Supposedly uPnP is a way to ameliorate  
that kind of support work but I haven't checked it out myself yet.

There's also some local variability - in much the same way that  
community access television is an exchange for local monopoly grants,  
I've spoken with many local officials who believe their franchise  
agreements do not preclude citizens from sponsoring community-benefit  
projects on the network.  It could be that the ToS and the Franchise  
Agreements are in conflict, but one needs to consult their own local  
franchise agreement for details as they're independently negotiated.

On Jun 20, 2007, at 12:50, Ben Scott wrote:

>   It depends on the nature of the usage.  A lot of torrent users are
> leaches, mainly downloading.

Most of the newer choking algorithms specifically treat these users  
very badly, essentially so that they have to enable the proper port  
forwarding on their NAT to get any kind of performance they'd find  
acceptable (except where NAT-busting techniques are sufficient to  
make this unnecessary).

-Bill

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