Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 16:50:31 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Chris Slothouber" <chris@hier7.com>, <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Could we get the FreeBSD torrent servers back? Message-ID: <002201c75940$1e828e00$3c01a8c0@coolf89ea26645> References: <45E0F697.2030005@allcaps.org><002001c758a1$a3ed10f0$3c01a8c0@coolf89ea26645> <45E12693.9050206@hier7.com>
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Slothouber" <chris@hier7.com> To: <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 10:02 PM Subject: Re: Could we get the FreeBSD torrent servers back? > Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Andrew Lentvorski" <bsder@allcaps.org> > > To: <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> > > Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 6:38 PM > > Subject: Could we get the FreeBSD torrent servers back? > > > > > >> Can we please get the FreeBSD torrent tracker and/or server back? > >> > >> (snip) > >> > > > > Nobody pays the mirrors for their bandwidth. They are hosting and > > paying for the bandwidth out of the goodness of their hearts. > > > > Nothing is stopping you from setting up your own torrent server on a big > > fast > > pipe that everyone else can use, and not pay you for. > > > > I don't know for sure how other ISP's do it but we definitely use > > bandwidth limitations on the servers we host, customers that pay a lot > > get a lot, customers that pay less get less, and the freebie servers > > get whatever is left over after the paying customers have had their fill. > > > > (snip) > > > > I would suspect if you examined the financing scheme used for the Linux > > download servers you would find that it is quite different than FreeBSD. > > But isn't the whole point of peer to peer file distribution to > *distribute* the bandwidth requirements to the point that the costs > involved for each of the individual peers is trivial but the client > receiving the file still obtains full speed of a direct download? Most of the time the way peer-to-peer filesharing is used, the point is to hide the sources of the streams, in order to distribute illicit material. What your talking about only works if you have a large group of FreeBSD volunteers that are willing to run the torrent servers. Let's assume that only 0.01% of any population group would step up to the plate to offer a torrent server. Well I can see a Linux torrent network working because Linux has an order of magnitude greater number of users than FreeBSD. But I think you would find it impossible to recruit something like 1000 FreeBSD users to step up to the plate and offer a torrent server. The population numbers just aren't there. Worse, the initial people that offer the server are going to get the brunt of the load and you can't give them any guarentee that your going to be able to recruit future torrent servers to lessen the work on them. Like out-of-control-broadcating on an Ethernet nework, sometimes in networking things just coalesce out of nowhere when the network gets large enough. I don't think we have enough FreeBSD users in the population to depend on things like this just appearing by themselves. FreeBSD came to the "grow big or grow well" crossroads many years ago and took the "grow well" path. Linux took the "grow big" path. It is very much like what happened to MacOS and Windows. One grew big, the other grew well. Today, though, neither can really change. FreeBSD can no more displace Linux in terms of numbers and in terms of newbies using it, than Linux could displace FreeBSD in terms of being able to be usable for commercial products, or displace FreeBSD in terms of being able to collect the absolute best developers in the industry. I think the Open Source world is much better off for this happening since it gives more different choices for the consumers, but by the same coin your going to be frustrated if you try to make FreeBSD look, walk and talk just like Linux. Ted
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