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P2P Manifesto:Peer To Peer Study/Project 204

Marco Montemagno writes " P2P Manifesto is a P2P study that I've done and also a project, released under CC license. This study (30 pages, available on a dedicated blog, in pdf format or in .torrent/blogtorrent) explain why: - P2P is unstoppable - P2P is positive for Companies - P2P is positive for the market - P2P is good for users All the readers can create their own P2P Manifesto, free to edit this original P2P manifesto. The idea is to then collect on the blog all the different P2P Manifesto's releases, to create a good knowledge base point about P2P issues."
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P2P Manifesto:Peer To Peer Study/Project

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  • by bburton ( 778244 ) *
    One of the points from TFA:
    "Users enjoy sharing all possible information."
    Isn't that the problem?
    • by AoT ( 107216 )
      I have not found it to be a problem for me.

    • Re:Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Taladar ( 717494 )
      Only if you try to sell information for more than their perceived worth.
    • "Isn't that the problem?"

      To those with existing business models on selling contents, yes. Read the manifesto. There's also a more coherent summary [masternewmedia.org]. It's only a problem if you believe the current (or rather recent past) model is the right way to distribute content and sharing is wrong.

      There are excellent points in this manifesto. As far as the sharing is concerned, the point is that the days of media companies making money from selling content are just about over. There's a new market in town and if

  • by sulli ( 195030 ) * on Monday January 17, 2005 @01:01PM (#11387069) Journal
    P2P is unstoppable - P2P is positive for Companies - P2P is positive for the market - P2P is good for users - All the readers can create their own P2P Manifesto

    Dilute! Dilute! OK! [drbronner.com]

  • by Nugget ( 7382 ) * on Monday January 17, 2005 @01:03PM (#11387086) Homepage
    Sorry Marco, but I don't see why I should respect the results of a "study" when the author doesn't distinguish between "P2P" and "people trading copyrighted data against the owner's wishes". This manifesto seems to perpetuate the myth that "P2P" is a synonym for "piracy". Heck, the paper can't even distinguish between a Macintosh computer and a MAC address.

    With such obviously lacking intellectual rigor, why should we have any confidence in your conclusions on the overall issue, which is far more complicated than many of the trivial things which escaped you?

    P2P should be about people freely choosing to share their creations with the world, not about consumers choosing to violate the license on commercial goods that they'd rather not pay for. You do a disservice to the future of P2P and information exchange when you perpetuate the myth that the two are the same thing.

    The goal should be making free-distribution licenses mainstream, not making it easier to violate licenses.

    • Additionally, he should have someone proof-read the essay before he posts it to the world. I gave up half way through point 1 after getting fet up with all the comma splices, missing words, redundant words... Just... ugh...
    • by eln ( 21727 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @01:14PM (#11387236)
      I agree. This whole paper seems like the unprofessional, semi-insane ramblings of a 14 year old kid. My only comfort is that he accurately titled it a Manifesto, although referring to it as a "study" at any point is disingenuous at best.

      This paper is full of errors, uses language that only someone with no concept of business communication would use, and, if widely propagated, could do more damage to the PR side of P2P than anything the RIAA or MPAA could hope to accomplish.
      • ...could do more damage to the PR side of P2P than anything the RIAA or MPAA could hope to accomplish.

        Could that be the intention? Hell, it could be an RIAA paper. Remember, the idea here is to get rid of P2P in any way possible. The whole piracy thing is used to get more public opinion on their side, and it's gotten people here just as riled up about it, and it's gotten us off track of what the real issue is. These people don't want you to share or upload anything. They want you to read what's on cnn or
      • referring to it as a "study" at any point is disingenuous at best.
        Even better is Hemos' "from the interesting-data-points dept." line. Admittedly, at this point I know that it's too much to hope that the editors would actually read the articles they post, but is it too much to ask for them to at least click on the link and glance at it for five seconds first?
      • Perhaps that is its true intent, to help muddy the waters...
    • I can respect the fact that the author is not a native English speaker, but at least get a respectable translation! I think the last google automatic translation I got was more legible than this.
    • "The goal should be making free-distribution licenses mainstream, not making it easier to violate licenses."

      To go about this licensing scheme I proprose a new manifesto, a Communist Manifesto where the people own everything! oh...forgot..
      • Ideas, images, movies and writings are not property.

        Property has physical existence as its primary characteristic. A book may be physical property. But the stream of words and images within are is not.

        Secondary characteristic: if you take a property away from the owner, the owner no longer has access to it. Take a book away from me, and you have stolen my property. Take an image of the book, and I still have the book; nothing has been stolen.

        No memetic hijacking of the words "property" and "stealing", p
        • Catbeller,

          What do you say to someone who sinks $1 million dollars into the production of a feature film that you just copied without permission? That is the person you are stealing from, not your next door neighbor who bought a legitimate copy.

          In the world you describe, a film that cost $1 million dollars to make could be bought once for $20 by one person. That one person then owns the film and allows infinite copies to be made. What do you say to film producer who produced a world wide smash hit but
          • I would say to him that he shouldn't judge others by his own motives. If his movie is really good he will probably get a lot more than the $20 back. If it is bad, ...

            Who wants to encourage the production of expensive, bad movies anyway?
            • Are you saying that stealing copyrighted material ensures that good movie producers will recover their costs and bad movie producers will not? That's a bit tortured. I'll stick with the current system.
            • Yeah, while I am absolutely against piracy. From the consumer standpoint, we have had alot of garbage shoved our way. Movies that were heavily marketed, and promoted only to be a disappointment.

              People just like to make their $$$ worthwhile. The movie and music industry does nothing after selling you a lemon. It just ends up another bad CD/DVD on the shelf.

          • You're begging the question, unless you believe in an economic principle where eveyone is to be reimbursed for all of their investments . (Who are the socialists now? Heh.)

            The question at hand is should copyright owners have the rights they do now? You assume they should, Catbeller does not.

            Take for example some other person. She spends one million dollars developing a mathematical proof that (pi + e) is irrational. But, gosh dangit, no one is paying when they reproduce the proof! But there's no law to
            • You are already living in a world where you can choose to produce or consume movies that are not protected by copyright. Why not practice what you preach? From this point forward, only consume movies that are not protected by copyright. Likewise, please produce some high budget blockbuster hits that are not protected by copyright.
              • You're being unreasonable. Why you feel compelled to mention what I do in this regard is beyond me. You can comment on my own way of life as much as you like, but it doesn't affect the argument at hand. Further, there's no way you can know what I do, maybe I do only consume public domain movies.

                This all misses on another, larger level as well, as I'm not an advocate of copyright law revision in the first place.

                Again, you seem to be arguing the same thing but instead of pointing out the consequences that
        • Every time this comes up the trolls sneak out of the woodwork to say that "copyright infringement isn't stealing because they still have the original!". While technically you are not depriving them of this, you will have to face the idea that the language and the medium is changing in front of your eyes. You don't think there is such a thing as intellectual property at all? Just because there are some people who distribute ideas, images, movies and writings to the general public for free doesn't mean eve
          • I would say that the market should decide, not some arbitrary placed law. If people think his book/movie/... is worth it they will probably help him make the next one.
          • You don't think there is such a thing as intellectual property at all?

            Exactly.

            Just because there are some people who distribute ideas, images, movies and writings to the general public for free doesn't mean everyone should have to.

            Yes it does.


            Don't you think the original author should be the one to make that choice?

            No.

            You're might disagree, but ideas (including images, movies, and writings) are culture, and as such belong to the people (collectively). How could it be ethical to tax culture itself? Mo

        • Property has physical existence as its primary characteristic. A book may be physical property. But the stream of words and images within are is not.

          You present a particular definition of property. What exactly `property' is is not the point of the conversation. The piracy / file-sharing debate is about the extent to which we should be carrying over the rules associated with property to information. On one hand, it is important to reward people for creating information. Without a positive expected value,

        • "No memetic hijacking of the words "property" and "stealing", please."

          You appear to be unaware -- or at the least, hopeful that the reader is unaware -- that the term "intellectual property" has been in existence since before you and I were born. Perhaps it is a new concept to you, but frankly, that's not good enough.

          "Your point about "communism"? Jefferson and his allies wanted no copyrights in the constitution. Damned commie."

          Jefferson, that bulwark of freedom, owned slaves. Cherry-picking his

        • Because we all know that information, knowledge and ideas - and the effort required to devise, create and embody it/them have zero value, correct?

          Oh that's not what you meant.

          So you meant that anybody who expends work creating something that isn't primarily a physical object, has no rights over the fruits of their labours?

          Well, apparently that might be what you mean, but I disagree,

          I'm perfectly happy to stop using the words 'theft' and 'property' when someone suggests alternative words that adequatel
          • by shark72 ( 702619 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @02:50PM (#11388132)

            "I'm perfectly happy to stop using the words 'theft' and 'property' when someone suggests alternative words that adequately express the loss that the creator of a work suffers when control of that work is ripped from their hands without their say so."

            I'd say that the response to this by many people reading this would be fuck them. If they're greedy enough to subscribe to this silly notion of expecting to be paid for their creative output, then they deserve what they can get.

            Putting all concepts of right and wrong aside for a moment, I think many reading this will agree that said greedy content creators are a bit like the American Indians in the 18th and 19th century with their similar notions of "we were here first." Again, right/wrong aside, you simply can't win against a much larger group of people who have technology on their side, whether they're a bunch of settlers with guns who want your land, or a bunch of teenagers with P2P apps who want your song. This is how it has always worked. Obviously, there's an insurmountable gulf between a songwriter missing a few rent payments and an entire tribe being massacred, but the fundamentals of group behavior are the same.

            Propaganda can be a useful tool here. Eradicating the Indian problem was made easier for our ancestors when they were fed the notion of Indians being diseased, drunken savages who raped our women. Likewise, today, although smart people know that the lifestyle of the typical artist is not a glamorous one, note how often it is that "artists are greedy, yadda yadda, limousines, yadda yadda, cocaine habits, yadda yadda they should just shut up and learn that P2P helps them" posts are modded +5, Insightful.

            • Why the hell is this drivel modded "Interesting". Wiping out the native american indians is "fundamental group behavior"? This guy is a psycho.

          • Look kids, see the straw person!

            No one has suggested that creative works have no value, or that there ought not be some rights attached to creations.

            The words you're looking for are "copyright", "trademark" and "patent". None of them are property rights. Property rights were invented to internalize negative externalities. Copyright, trademark and patent rights were invented to internalize positive externalities.

            --Tom
            • No straw person intended. The paragraph in the parent that really irked me was the one that said:

              "Secondary characteristic: if you take a property away from the owner, the owner no longer has access to it. Take a book away from me, and you have stolen my property. Take an image of the book, and I still have the book; nothing has been stolen."

              The implication in 'nothing being stolen' being that we have some kind of victimless crime, or indeed no crime.

              There are many ways of using 'steal' in the English l
    • by javaxman ( 705658 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @02:11PM (#11387765) Journal
      If you want to create your own P2P Manifesto, you can. Feel free to edit the original P2P manifesto and send it at this email. All the different P2P Manifesto release wil be posted here.

      While such language is common on Creative Commons-licensed stuff, in this case it's almost like the author is saying "Here is my first cut of a document I'd like to see produced, everyone else please edit it, fill in the ( huge ) gaps, give it some actual content and substance. Thanks."

      It's the literary equivalent of setting up an open source software project with a not-really-functional 'prototype' codebase and hoping someone makes it actually work.

      I know the topic of P2P ( and more generally, 'file sharing' ) has been studied by tons of smart folks at universities [caida.org] and corporations [hp.com] alike, what about some links to some of those? Oddly enough, the 'study' just has links to ( mostly ) opinion pieces and blogs ( including, of all things, a slashdot article ).

      To speak to the parent posts' points of

      the author doesn't distinguish between "P2P" and "people trading copyrighted data against the owner's wishes". This manifesto seems to perpetuate the myth that "P2P" is a synonym for "piracy".
      well, that's an interesting topic all by itself.

      Frankly, copyright-protected files are the most common files found on P2P networks. Rather than hiding from reality, we should seek to understand what reality means. In this case, I think reality means that copyright is a generally unenforcable law - like many other laws on the books, it's an example of bad law which in the long run wastes taxpayer money for the ( dubious ) benefit of a small segment of the population.

      Copyright infringment is an old, old problem, vastly pre-dating the internet. Even without filesharing, there'd be lots of "piracy", as it's now labeled. As long as there is copyright protection for easily copied items, there will be piracy. It's a law which is extremely difficult to enforce- at best.

      • "Even without filesharing, there'd be lots of "piracy", as it's now labeled."

        Been labelled that for more than a century. Hit your school library's OED if it has one.

        Otherwise, great post. I would mod it up if I could.

      • for the ( dubious ) benefit of a small segment of the population

        Well, if by that you mean the small part of the population that at least tries to make a living by creating things with their brains, then yes - protecting those people from theft is what those tax dollars are being spent on.

        But I'm questioning whether or not those are the only people who would benefit. Why are people ripping off the creative output of that minority? Because they value the content. They want it. What the minority does is
        • And officially (say, in law enforcement) taking that position that the situation is unenforceable sends completely the wrong message. About taxes. About speeding. About vandalism. About all sorts of quality of life and someone's-got-to-pay-for-it issues. Remember when Rudy Giuliani started enforcing "unenforcable" laws about commercial properties with broken windows, jaywalking, and pissing on park benches? It mattered, and this mattes

          You've missed my point entirely. Or, at least if you think laws regardin

          • Or, at least if you think laws regarding taxes, vandalism and public defecation are examples of unenforcable laws, you've missed my point

            No, I must not have made my own point clearly enough. I cite those other things as having been routinely considered, by a lot of people, as beyond any hope of meaningful enforcement. Not because they were logisitcally impossible to enforce, but because the political will was absent, and had been (in New York, anyway) for years before it was put on the front burner and d
            • But these are artists who, seeking a wider audience, epxressly sign up with people who can get them there. They couldn't possibly see the exposure, or work with the resources they use without agreeing to pay some, or even most, of their receipts to those other parties. But so what? I'd also rather make $0.02 300,000 times than $10.00 300 times, especially knowing that I've now got a much, much larger audience for my next effort. And, if I feel like keeping it up long enough, I can leverage that audience mor
              • Look, I'm not trying to convince you that it's 'cool' to pirate music...

                I understand. I'm thinking more about what other (idiotic) people think when they hear anything even remotely along the line of your (reasonable) arguments. Everything that even remotely adds up to throwing up our hands, or expressing gloom about the subject at all, normalizes the larger conceits of the "infomation wants to be free" crowd, and especially when that information is a freshly burned Matrix DVD, etc. I guess I chafe at g
  • by daniil ( 775990 ) *
    I'd say that it's a bit too late for such manifestos. It's not 1995 anymore. P2P is not something emerging, something that needs to make itself manifest -- it's reality. Heck, taking into account all the lawsuits and anti-piracy laws, it will soone be the past.

    Try again. And try doing something real, instead of writing silly manifestoes devoid of any content.

    • Heck, taking into account all the lawsuits and anti-piracy laws, it will soone be the past.

      No offense but since sharing music over networks is still rampant DESPITE all the lawsuits YEARS after the lawsuits started.... Wouldn't it be logical to assume that maybe, just maybe, P2P will stick around also?

      I'll agree the original article wasn't that well articulated. I know third graders that write better.

      But to say that P2P is 'soon to be past' is shortsighted and lacking any exploration of history. Hist
      • Will you belive me if i say that it was meant as tongue-in-cheek?

        Either way, no matter whether p2p will be dealt a mortal blow by anti-piracy laws or not, i doubt that this guy's "manifesto" (and its derivatives, if there will ever be any) will affect the future of p2p in any way. He's just a poser.

        • Don't forget there is a world outside your small box named US. A lot of countries haven't introduced any new copyright laws and the eagerness of the US to do so will encourage this behaviour in some countries around the world. Not everyone follows the US example, there are quite a few countries who do just the opposite.
  • Fools (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Donny Smith ( 567043 )
    That childish crap is totally useless to their cause.

    No sane person denies that P2P is useful for certain purposes. The problem is about the bad side of P2P which is that it is unrestricted playground for IPR violations.

    They would be better off by
    a) creating PR campaign against P2P abuse (quite useless as well, but still...)
    b) working with interested parties to include anti-piracy code in P2P clients (of course, they don't want to do that)

    So, the effect of their action will be naught - those who use P2P
    • b) working with interested parties to include anti-piracy code in P2P clients

      Also, I should have to pay with time, money, and effort to have anti-stolen-cash technology installed in my wallet.
    • How about simply telling people not to copy what they didn't pay for? Nope, it won't be effective, but the alternative, working with interested parties to include anti-piracy code in P2P clients, makes it sound like it's the software author's fault.

      What sort of "anti-piracy code" sdo you think will work?
      Filters? Nope, there have been past stories here about the borkups caused by content owners not checking the results filters gave them.
      Tie the software into a big content comparison DB? Let's see that one s
      • As noted, there's the legal stick -- suing, probably focusing on those offering the most with the highest bandwidth, as the big-time distributors are probably easier to track. They likely also want lots of attendant publicity, to scare those who are sitting on the fence into not starting.

        They can also attack the P2P systems themselves through technological means, such as trying to flood the networks with bogus offerings (corrupted files, servers that drastically slow down during the download, etc) and per
  • Manifesto has a real negative ring to it. Let's call this thing "the titles of P2P"... thus altering the connotation from a crazyman's ramblings to that of a declaration of independence.
    • The problem is... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by PornMaster ( 749461 )
      ...it is a crazy man's ramblings.
    • A written declaration of an individual or group's ideas, purposes, and intentions.

      In other words, a manifesto has nothing to do with facts or thruths, only agendas and propaganda.

      This "oh poor me I shouldnt have to pay for Britney Spears because I don't like her" crap is aptly titled.
    • Re:Connotation (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The tern "Manifesto" has negative connotations, primarily in the United States of America and, to a lesser extent, the countries which share its spere of influence. This is due to the Communist Manifesto, penned by Karl Marx. Interestingly enough, Communist has devolved into a derogatory term in the same areas. In the areas where Communist is not a swear word, Manifesto also does not infer the incoherent ramblings of a lunatic, placed in print to corrupt the world

      Do you see a correlation?
  • by daniil ( 775990 ) * <evilbj8rn@hotmail.com> on Monday January 17, 2005 @01:09PM (#11387165) Journal
    Manifestos are so 1909.
  • Interesting (Score:4, Funny)

    by Fizzlewhiff ( 256410 ) <jeffshannon&hotmail,com> on Monday January 17, 2005 @01:09PM (#11387168) Homepage
    But I think I will wait 8 or 9 years for the Brian Hook analysis.
  • Nothing new... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lepaca Kliffoth ( 850669 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @01:11PM (#11387188)
    http://crypto.stanford.edu/DRM2002/darknet5.doc That's from 2 years ago, a very well made study by Microsoft about the darknets. The "bad guys" already know that P2P is unstoppable, the battle we're watching day by day is only a facade.
  • ..."Study"? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Stween ( 322349 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @01:20PM (#11387296)
    This guy doesn't seem to be aware that Peer-to-Peer application design is simply not new, it's only that people have become aware of "P2P" concepts thanks to Napster and successive file-sharing networks.

    Page 13:
    "Take back technology of let's say 20 years"... yet 30 years ago, peer-to-peer protocols were dominant in the Internet. Hmm.

    Further, for a study, I'd expect some references. With interesting things such as, you know, FACTS and FIGURES. He seems to present an argument, with no data to back it up. This is like a high school report.

    He seems to write.

    In such a manner that William Shatner.

    Would be proud of.

    I'm not entirely sure what the point of this story is. Can someone please enlighten me?
    • by Anonymous Coward
      Can someone please enlighten me?

      Mu.
    • Re:..."Study"? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by slinky259 ( 827395 )
      I'm not sure what you did in high school, but this sounds more like 6th grade writing. Even the ninth graders at my school would laugh at this.
      • I'm not familiar with American terminology, but 6th grade appears to be around the age of 12.

        "High School" here in the UK refers to secondary education which starts at around the age of 11 (varying slightly certainly between Scotland and England).
  • danger (Score:3, Informative)

    by AnonymousCactus ( 810364 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @01:20PM (#11387299)
    I think there is a very real danger of this only being contributed to by hardcore proponents of P2P and the danger in that is that no one will subjectively evaluate alternatives. The academic research [rochester.edu] seems to suggest that P2P isn't necessarily the best alternative and that something more centralized like Napster or really centralized like a client-server model but where anyone can upload/download is better in terms of overall cost...at least for legal stuff.

    For this to be useful both sides must be presented well and P2P still win...if that doesn't happen then it's not worth much of anything.
    • Re:danger (Score:3, Insightful)

      Of course centralization is more efficient on several points. Decentralization was the fool's answer to legal attacks. Now the lawyer's are busy chasing down this individual or that individual. Decentralization offers no legal safety, no political safety. They should have been working on anonymity.

      No one can sue you, if they can't figure out who you are.

      They should also have been working on deniability. Freenet may offer anonymity, but when freenet is outlawed, it will be pretty obvious what IP addresses
  • This study (30 pages, available on a dedicated blog, in pdf format or in .torrent/blogtorrent) explain why: - P2P is unstoppable - P2P is positive for Companies - P2P is positive for the market - P2P is good for users

    This is the worst formatting ever - It could be so much improved - By using commas instead of dashes - So people could actually read and understand - The summary a little bit - And this reeks of buzzwords - P2P this and P2P is positive - P2P is a scalable enterprise solution - With high ROI r

    • Actually, I think he just submitted his article with line breaks, not html, and it came out looking something like this:

      ...explain why:
      - P2P is unstoppable
      - P2P is positive for Companies
      - P2P is positive for the market
      - P2P is good for users

      and it just got all bunched up because our editors aren't editing, just modifying.
  • by moonboi ( 850671 )
    with P2P app as small as 15 line of code and broadband in more than 50% of Amerian houses File sharing is here to stay
  • ... one for the "Peer2Peer" section!
  • jesus h. (Score:3, Funny)

    by maxpublic ( 450413 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @01:31PM (#11387404) Homepage
    Who wrote this crap? A 12-year-old with a hard-on for free porn and illegal warez? The quality of the 'manifesto' made me think there should be a "like, dude!" at the end of every sentence.

    Max
    • Marco is Assistant Professor at Cattolica University, Milan (Italy), of "Theories and techniques of online communication", faculty of Arts and Philosophy.
      ----

      I don't know the guy, this is on the webpage mentioned int he article. He certainly doesn't seem intelligent enough to be a professor of anything. Even if I let him slide a bit for being a non-native english speaker, the paper is still *awful.*

  • to see too many P2P in a short P2P story paragraph and consequently I lost my P2P interest in the P2P paper.
  • Wikipedia (Score:2, Funny)

    by burbankmarc ( 838977 )
    I think you should submit this to Wikipedia, I think all knowledge on the planet should be put into Wikipedia...
  • Ok, this is the most poorly written "FA" ever posted on slashdot. As such, and in my opinion, it should be go down in lore with the likes of goatse, hot grits, Soviet Russia, and our giant ant overlords.

    It makes "All your base" read like Shakespeare!

    I dedicate this thread to shredding this raging bozo, and hereby retaliate in the name of the King's English.

    I'll kick things off with my favorite.

    In this case in order to put it on Winmx it will be not even necessary to convert it from analogical to digit
  • this 'Manifesto' is a joke right? It sounds like someone talking about how great the 'Power Rangers' is on Cartoon Network, how unstoppable and amzing they are, my god even the most powerful demon in the universe can't stop them!!1onehundredthousandonehundredandandeleven
    • Here, you want a paragraph which is more meaningful, better structured and readable:

      "P2P has a lot of potential for reducing costs and increasing bandiwdth for distributing data but the technology needs to be developed furthur to protect the rights of content creators. Current solutions are synonmous with illegal pirating of music, films and applications, this is a stigma that will be hard to shift if current P2P technologies continue to allow this illegal distribution."P2P has a lot of potential for redu
  • O'Reilly disease (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by Catbeller ( 118204 )
    I see a lot of ad hominem nastiness here. Try some arguments. Screaming that someone is stupid, a communist, or a kid is ripped straight from the Bill O'Reilly handbook. This is what passes for "arguments" on the lunatic right fringe, which unfortunately is pretty much what passes for news for most people today. Falafel-filled sadness. Sigh.
  • It's a disconnected bunch of phrases, as if he jotted down a bunch of ideas for his "manifesto", but forgot to link them into a coherent whole.

    I suggest you learn to write, then try again.

  • by BarryNorton ( 778694 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @01:52PM (#11387607)
    "My name is Marco and I can't stop thinking about P2P. P2P is cool; and by cool I mean totally sweet."
    • by Nspace13 ( 654963 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @04:07PM (#11388852) Homepage
      Facts:

      1. P2P are softwareses.
      2. P2P spews bits ALL the time.
      3. The purpose of the P2P is to flip out and hurt Metallica's bottom line.

      Testimonial:

      P2P can kill any band's ability to make money! P2P can cut off the flow of money ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. These programs are so crazy and awesome that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this P2P program that was running on a computer in a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon it downloaded the whole britney spears collection in like 5 seconds. My friend Mark said that he saw a P2P program totally suck up all his bandwidth just because he tried to download anna kornikova naked.

      And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      If you don't believe that P2P has REAL Ultimate Power you better get a life right now or they will chop WASD fingers right off!!! It's an easy choice, if you ask me.

      P2P is sooooooooooo sweet that I want to crap my pants. I can't believe it sometimes, but I feel it inside my heart. These programs are totally awesome and that's a fact. P2P is fast, smooth, cool, strong, powerful, and sweet. I love P2P with all of my body (including my pee pee).
  • my p2p manifesto (Score:3, Interesting)

    by br00tus ( 528477 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @01:55PM (#11387631)
    I've a developed p2p program (Gnutizen [sf.net] - it can search and download files in Gnutella, but it's still beta and buggy) and have many ideas of where p2p can go in a technical sense. But if one puts sharing copyrighted works aside, there seems to be one main purpose to p2p - lowering distribution costs. If I am some kid in Portugal who writes a great Linux distribution, but can't afford to pay for the bandwidth of many people download 700MB ISO's from a web server every day, I can instead put up a torrent and leave it with one seed, throttling the speed to whatever I want.

    Of course, p2p right now is often thought of as a single file - an ISO, an mpg, an mp3, a zip file). I see nugget has posted in this thread - the peer-to-peer programs which he currently helps maintain use p2p to do operation distribution, not file distribution. As does Folding@Home [stanford.edu] (which studies protein/gene problems in a distributed manner) and SETI. GPU [sourceforge.net] is interesting in this respect as you are the one deciding what operations to perform - from adding 1 and 1, to calculating pi, to whatever. I really like Freenet - it is a very versatile protocol so that web pages, Usenet type forums, and even (small) file trading are all possible. I've even seen people play chess games over frost. And as a bonus, there is the option of (some degree of) anonymity on Freenet, so that is an added bonus.

    I really would love to see someone with no money to host such thing create something as complex as Slashdot, with moderation system and all, and do it over p2p, maybe on something like Freenet, or maybe something else. The same with things like Wikipedia. Nowadays, the little guy is punished by high bandwidth costs if what he made is popular. With p2p this is not a problem any more.

  • by autarkeia ( 152712 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @02:52PM (#11388156) Homepage

    It appears from browsing the rest of his site that this guy is Italian and has a weak grasp of English. FWIW, he has apparently appeared on several different Italian television shows [typepad.com] whilst discussing P2P. And he's not too harsh on the eyes, either.

    While I agree that this translation sucks, don't ride him so hard on his poor English skills.

    • You're joking right? Give him a break because he's "pretty". This is /. not the young and the bloody restless. Its not just the translation that's poor. His grasp of the concepts is poor, and he's claiming to be an expert in technology. He's an arts professor! As far as I'm concerned he's a conman with a winning smile, and you're falling for it!

  • If you think P2P is cool, wait until you hear about HTTP!

    Man that's going to rock!

    But really: Most discussion of P2P is moot -- its here to stay and not only that its been here for a while. Furthermore (and this is what the RIAA can't get their tiny brains around) there is no real way to get *rid* of P2P. There are a near infinite number of P2P permutations from encryption to closed networks to more advanced file storate/indexing, etc. etc. that make P2P a genie that no-way, no-how is getting back in it

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