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Peercast Source Available 109

Posted by michael from the p2p2p2p2p2p2p dept.
jilles writes "Peercast, a p2p streaming program, has had some attention on slashdot recently. Now the source code has been released under GPL. Please find the announcement + source code here."
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Peercast Source Available More

Peercast Source Available

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  • Fastrack (Score:4, Interesting)

    by batboy78 ( 255178 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @01:40AM (#4657357) Homepage
    Now if only the code for the FastTrack [fasttrack.nu] system would be released. Perhaps a better protocol could be developed with a mix of Gnutella and FastTrack.

    • Re:Fastrack (Score:3, Informative)

      by XTerm89D ( 609102 )
      giFT [sourceforge.net] anyone ?

      giFT has proven to be an extremely reliable program, even though it's CVS only.
      Please note that you have to checkout a new version every 3 days orso to be able to connect.

      • Re:Fastrack (Score:3, Interesting)

        by batboy78 ( 255178 )
        After reviewing the giFT [sourceforge.net] site I believe it shows a lot of potential. The only thing that seemed to bother me was the simple availability of IP addresses gathered from the client. IP addresses = ISP = Account Name = RIAA & MPAA & everyone else knocking on your door. But its still very much in development.

        • dont most of the mainstream p2p networks have ip adresses easily available? making the client hide ip adresses doesn't help much if you're scared the RIAA will log ip adresses, does it?
        • RIAA & MPAA & everyone else knocking on your door.

          I can't imagine anyone knocking on your door, unless you use it to share their content.
          • I can't imagine anyone knocking on your door, unless you use it to share their content.

            You might need a better imagination.

            The *AA views the mere act of listening to mp3's, the mere act of using p2p to be piracy.

            (No I'm not crazy. The foregoing is a plausible conclusion from the facts. How they actually view things is perhaps unknowable.)

            They can always knock on your door, send you a letter, etc. (not busting down your door, I would hope) telling you to stop using p2p. They could harrass you until you went to the trouble to get them to stop.

            Remember that with things digital we are moving towards a guilty until proven innocent system. "Hey, Mr. ISP, shut down his account because he is running p2p, and we claim copyright infringement." No proof required.

            My point is simply that just because you are innocent doesn't mean the *AA might not harrass you.

        • Re:Fastrack (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Zaffle ( 13798 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @08:09AM (#4658261) Homepage Journal
          The only thing that seemed to bother me was the simple availability of IP addresses gathered from the client. IP addresses = ISP = Account Name = RIAA & MPAA & everyone else knocking on your door.

          This is a problem inherint in most Internet based sharing systems (as that damn annoying popup ad says, you're broadcasting your IP address (duh, it's how the Net works, you can't stop that (well, see below)).

          There are alternatives however, the much proclaimed FreeNet [freenetproject.org], and IIP [http], however, with IIP, (which is secure & anonymouse IRC) sending/receiving files is, afaik, still in heavy alpha testing.

          FreeNet, as a concept works, and as a product, is usable, however, due to the complex nature of the task it does (complete anonimity), it is slow. Frost is the best way currently to swap files. Frost is (imho), NNTP for freenet.

          With every other system, your IP address is available, this includes Gnutella and Fasttrack. If you want to hide who you are, you need to use Freenet. Take a look at the "bad" stuff on FreeNet (I mean figuativly, not literally). The reason why there is so much, is because its SAFE to put it there (unless you are really stupid).

          The only other thing you could do is find an ISP that guarentees to destroy any record of who used what IP address at what time. However, that doesn't stop a court ordered tapping being placed to monitor you in real time.

    • Fastrack is only good because there is a lot of users. If everyone on fastrack switched over to gnutella all would be fine. Although the same could be argued for switching to fastrack. Personally i like gnutella more but when p2p works its good enough for me.

      • Re:Fastrack (Score:5, Informative)

        by Per Wigren ( 5315 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @02:40AM (#4657542) Homepage
        If everyone on fastrack switched over to gnutella all would be fine.

        No, that would be HORRIBLE! Gnutella doesn't scale that much.

        • It certainly does now. I was very concerned when Morpheus switched to Gnutella, but it went off without a hitch.

        • Re:Fastrack (Score:1, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Gnutella1 doesn't, but Gnutella2 [gnutella2.com] scales just fine. It uses UDP style searching, and it's spec-developer (Mike) informs his users that it can withold millions of nodes and still have a good stable global search.

          Whee.

    • Re:Fastrack (Score:5, Informative)

      by Zorikin ( 49410 ) <zorikin@NospAm.yahoo.com> on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @01:55AM (#4657409)
      OpenFT? [sourceforge.net]

      There's already an implementation of the FastTrack protocol, the problem is that the kazaa-and-friends network doesn't allow clients which aren't blessed by the authentication server to connect.

      Gnutella clients have been and still are accumulating the useful features of FastTrack.

  • Download conditions? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @01:41AM (#4657363)
    The peercast web page says "To download the PeerCast source you must also agree to the following conditions..."

    The GPL says "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."

    Sounds like there is some incompatibility here.

    • Re:Download conditions? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And they require that modifications be licensed under their commercial license along with the inability to revoke modifications--is this a code grab clause that allows them to close the source without any recourse for conributors?
      • Thats modifications that you submit to them...not merely modifications that you make. So a fork wouldn't be subject to their commerical liscence. I don't think they can use your modifications for their commercial work anyway, though, because you recieved it with the right to use it but to modify/distribute it you have to accept the GPL. When you submit it back, you are distributing your modifications. Hence, what they recieve is at that point GPL-ed, and even though they own the original rights (for which they can have multiple liscenses) your modifications are not subject to multiple liscenses...your modifications are GPL only. Yes? The only way around it would be if they said "wait, don't give us that modification, here is a commercial liscense and the source you started with...NOW lets see you do the same modifications and submit it to us". But that means you know have a commercial liscense too...
    • look at the conditions, they are about enforcing the GPL. only the first one is not and i suppose thathas nothing to do with the code more to do withet health of the main network.

      To download the PeerCast source you must also agree to the following conditions:

      a) You must not connect to the main PeerCast network if you have modified any of the code in the `core` module. (see below)

      b) You must not submit modifications to us that contain or use code that is not under the terms of the GPL.

      c) You must agree that any modifications accepted into the main PeerCast CVS will automatically fall under the terms of the GPL and PeerCast commercial license.

      d) You must agree to the terms of the GPL license that covers PeerCast.

      e) We reserve the right to accept or deny modifications to the main PeerCast CVS.

      f) Modifications accepted into the main PeerCast CVS can not be revoked. (see below)

      • " The reason being that broken clients will affect everyone on the network. In order to help you test changes we have set up a seperate network solely for this purpose. When you are happy that your changes work, then please make a submission to the CVS so that we can make the changes available to everybody.
        If you absolutely need to use the main PeerCast network to test, then you must let us know beforehand. Please state the changes made and when you plan to connect. Although in most cases its much easier to use one of our test networks instead. "

    • Re:Download conditions? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by theoddbot ( 520034 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @01:58AM (#4657424)
      From their webpage:


      To download the PeerCast source you must also agree to the following conditions:

      a) You must not connect to the main PeerCast network if you have modified any of the code in the `core` module. (see below)

      b) You must not submit modifications to us that contain or use code that is not under the terms of the GPL.

      c) You must agree that any modifications accepted into the main PeerCast CVS will automatically fall under the terms of the GPL and PeerCast commercial license.

      d) You must agree to the terms of the GPL license that covers PeerCast.

      e) We reserve the right to accept or deny modifications to the main PeerCast CVS.

      f) Modifications accepted into the main PeerCast CVS can not be revoked. (see below)

      The reason being that broken clients will affect everyone on the network. In order to help you test changes we have set up a seperate network solely for this purpose.

      If you find a bug after submitting, simply resubmit the changes.


      (a) Could be the Terms Of Service for their network. Shouldn't be a problem with the GPL there. And they have set up a separate test network for you.

      (b) and (d) are just restating the GPL

      (e) Is fair enough. They can accept whatever they want into their tree. If you don't like it, fork.

      (c) and (f) should also be fine. They have released their code under the GPL. There is nothing in the GPL to obligate them to incorporate any changes you make back into their tree.

      If you want your code in their tree, agree to their terms. If you don't like it, fork.

      -Spyro

      • Re:Download conditions? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by FunkyChild ( 99051 ) <slashdot@mke[ ]et ['3.n' in gap]> on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @02:27AM (#4657506) Homepage
        d) You must agree to the terms of the GPL license that covers PeerCast.


        (b) and (d) are just restating the GPL


        As far as I know, the GPL doesn't stipulate that you must agree to the GPL in order to use the software. Since the GPL affords extra rights you can either:

        a) use the software like any other closed source software, with all the protections of copyright law (eg no unauthorised distribution etc.)

        or b) agree to the GPL, and in doing so receive the extra rights that the author gives you such as the right to modify, reate derivative works etc, under the conditions specified in the agreement.

        You have a choice - either agree to the GPL in it's entirety or just use the software under the usual terms of copyright law. The GPL is not a EULA that defines the terms of you using the software, it is an agreement one chan choose to enter into, in order to gain additional rights.
        • It isn't requiring you to agree to the GPL in order to use the software, it's only if you want a copy of the source. And as the only thing that entitles you to a copy of the source is the GPL, I see no reason why they cannot require your acceptance of it before giving you access to the source.
          • According to the GPL, you have to give out the code without further restrictions if you distribute binaries. Currently, that's not a problem because Peercast can't violate their own copyright. But it will be a problem once they accept code from 3rd parties into their code.

      • Re:Download conditions? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ComputerSlicer23 ( 516509 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @02:41AM (#4657546)
        (c) and (f) are not as wholesome clean as they appear. They require implicit trust of the entity your dealing with not to at some point abuse your trust. They have a great deal of power, and a change in management, or a court order could cause them to abuse those powers.

        You need a lawyer to properly interpret what they mean in c. Do they mean a specific version of the Peer Cast Commerical license, or do they mean what it says after you've agreed, and they've since re-written it?

        The really stupid part, is they don't force you to give up your copyright. So if they you submit changes back to them, and they want to change the license, they aren't the copyright holder, you are, so they have to ask you for your permission. At least, if you hire a lawyer and stop them they do.

        Okay, what in the hell do they mean by revoke in part (f)?. No one but a CVS committer can "revoke" anything. Are they saying, if legal issues come up you can't force them to remove the code. Uhh, they can't usurp the legal authority that says they can't have it in the first place. Are they saying, that if you change your mind on the source, it can't be removed. Uhhh, I've already agreed to your current license, what more do they want? They can always keep the current code I've submitted under the commerical license in effect when I submitted the changes. This has potential for abuse.

        Do they mean, if they add code I don't like, I can't remove/revoke it in my local copy. Uhhh, that really not very GPL like, and clearly not compliant with GPL source.

        Depending on how all this reads, and what precisely the legal implications of it are, this is not a very nice license. If they want to say, look, we'll accept your changes into the mainline tree, but you have to give up your copyright, and it's releasable under the GPL and our commercial license. That's a lot like the FSF, except the commercial license bit.

        If they want to have terms on connecting to their network, that's fine. Make it a term of agreement for connecting to the network, but that isn't compatible with GPL as a term of downloading the source. The really ironic part, is what if you give it to me under the GPL, I never agreed to any of these terms, so they don't apply to me at all. I have them under the license of the GPL. None of these terms transfer w/ the GPL (specifically, because you can't add additional terms to the GPL). It might be a GPL like license, but it sure isn't the GPL.

        I see what it is they are attempting to accomplish, but it's pretty clear they don't have a good legal staff. IANAL, and even I can see all kinds of blantant legal problems with this. I'd expect them to fold inside of a year as a business if this is all the more they pay attention to detail.

        Kirby

        • Re:Download conditions? (Score:5, Informative)

          by PeerCast ( 592579 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @03:20AM (#4657622)
          As someone else mentioned [slashdot.org], the GPL doesn`t give anyone rights to modify our tree, if you don`t like the idea of your code being in the main branch, then fork.

          f) is common sense, if you submit a patch that gets accepted then you can`t really expect us to be able to roll back N versions if you suddenly decide you don`t want it in there anymore.

          BTW peercast.org isn`t a business, we don`t have any legal staff, we`ve got a few programmers working in their spare time.
          • I've got no problems with my code being in your tree, but the licensing agreement, is clearly incompatible with the GPL (go read the GPL closely, and it'll jump out and bite you). I think I see what you're attempting to accomplish. However, (f) is either uneccessary, or in violation of the GPL. I've given it to you, and under the GPL, I can't possibly take it back. I can change the terms of distribution going forward, but the copy you have is always under the GPL. I'm the copyright holder, but I've given it to you under the terms of the GPL. That's what the GPL is all about. Richard Stallman's for all his personality faults didn't miss much with the legal fine points w/ the GPL. Item (f) either redundant, or could be used maliciously. It's not legally clearly defined, which makes it very dangerous in the hands of a laywer. (c) is just redundant, and uneccessary. Read up on what makes the GPL tick. If they don't agree with the GPL, then they can't use the code in any way, read item 6 I believe from the GPL. The GPL isn't a contract, its a copyright agreement.

            Thanks, for linking to the parent of my post.... It's the one I was responding too, after I read it, and clicked "Reply to this". I was well aware of what was said there.

            BTW peercast.org isn`t a business, we don`t have any legal staff, we`ve got a few programmers working in their spare time.

            So if it isn't a business, why exactly do I have to agree to let you distribute it under your commercial license? It's a business, or you intend to start one if you have a "commerical license". Working in your spare time is how most small business start, hell it's basically how Apple and probably HP started. If you have a product, and a commercial license, you should at least have a lawyer of some type who reviews contracts, and legal documents like commercial licensing agreements. Even if it's just a friendly group of people. If you ever do any thing for money, your probably going to want to either incorporate, or setup some form of legal agreement between all the major copyright holders, and that will take a lawyer.

            You've not accomplished much at all by the licensing agreement, besides making it illegal to use your software. The licensing terms violate the terms of the GPL, which basically means nobody can legally use your under the GPL, and you haven't granted them the rights to use it anywhere else. Which pretty much means it's useless.

            Kirby

            • " (c) is just redundant, and uneccessary. Read up on what makes the GPL tick. If they don't agree with the GPL, then they can't use the code in any way, read item 6 I believe from the GPL. The GPL isn't a contract, its a copyright agreement."


              Not true. Using the software isn't covered by the GPL:
              Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope.
              The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
              • What's the license on the binaries? Where's the agreement that says I can run them? I suppose since the binaries are available for download I can use those by implicit agreement. However, what allows me to copy the source if I don't have the GPL. Nothing. So again the source is in fact useless as currently licensed, because without a legal copy, it's pretty hard to compile. Someone who does accept the GPL could distribute the binaries to me, but no one can do that on firm legal ground. The licensing is self contradictory.. The binaries might be useful, because they did put them up for public download. Presumable that means I can run them. The source however, is completely useless to me.

                Kirby

    • In addition to what this guy says, the people who own the copyright are allowed to put additional restrictions on top of the GPL. It's people who want to modify or redistribute it who cannot add more restrictions.

      For example, i can write a program and put it on my website and say, "You can use this program under the terms of the GPL so long as you jump up and down first and call yourself a beagle." However, once they downloaded it, i couldn't stop them from making it available on their website without the jumping/beagle clause.
      • Hmm. "this guy" was supposed to be a link to the comment that showed that the only real restriction listed was related to the network TOS. Not sure why it didn't show up; it was there in "Preview".
    • The peercast web page says "To download the PeerCast source you must also agree to the following conditions..."

      The GPL says "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."

      The GPL also says "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
      covered by this License; they are outside its scope."

      So there's no problem. Move along.
    • "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."

      Their extra restrictions are mostly deal with CVS, their peercast network, and re-iterate that it's uner the GPL. No conflict if you actually read it.
  • Perhaps I am missed the point of the program, but what good is a p2p streaming network? I mean its great that its GPL and all, but most people just like to leech files not listen to streaming audio. I suppose this could sort of get around the whole CARP problem, but I don't think this is the way to resolve that problem
    • If you are a user on a dialup modem, you will be able to broadcast music to the entire network. The stream is distributed to many other streaming servers and hence a small amount of bandwidth is required on your end to reach a large number of users. This would be fantastic for "Dialup DJ's" and others who don't have the bandwidth but want to stream out audio shows. GPL should allow the project to reach goals faster and possibly spawn other projects/ (streaming video, voip plug-ins)
      • OK, maybe I am missing some bit of tech here, but won't a substantial amount of data need to initially pass over that 56k line to iinitiate the stream? Uploading an album-length mp3/ogg/ whatever is non-trivial timewise. Does the protocol allow for some caching and buffering? Otherwise I, with 5mbps download, am liable to see a given stream, go "oh, that sounds groovy," start to d/l it, and within a couple of seconds have burned through what has already taken a couple of hours to upload at the source.
        Assuming the issues of buffering have been addressed (I.E.: don't make a stream available until it is complete on the network), this could be a pretty neat idea.
        • The protocol is the same as is used by shoutcast. All that peercast does is relay the stream. Typically clients such as winamp do some buffering.

          Essentially, when streaming, you tell shoutcast/oddcast or whatever encoder you are using to stream the music to your peercast client rather than a regular shoutcast server. Peercast then inserts some meta information into the peercast network so that other clients can find your stream. Other peercast clients can connect to your client to receive the stream. Peercast treats received streams exactly the same as streams that come from oddcast so anyone listening to your stream can also relay it further on. Theoretically, this allows a modem user to stream to a nearly endless amount of users by uploading just 1 stream. In practice it is better to allow for two or three streams so you have somewhat better reliability. Of course you need bandwidth in order to be able to relay. Low bandwidth ogg streams propagate better through the network than 128kbit mp3 streams. Ogg streams of around 45 kbit seem to be popular among peercast users.

          Recently the ability to relay regular shoutcast streams was added so if you have a regular shoutcast server, you may save some bandwidth by encouraging your users to connect using peercast rather than directly to your server. Alternatively you can set up your own peercast node next to your regular server.

  • GPL + Commercial (Score:5, Interesting)

    by XTerm89D ( 609102 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @01:45AM (#4657371)
    Lately I see more and more companies release their program/product under the General Public License, saying that, if you want to use it in a commercial product you have to buy a commercial license.
    I am modestly fond over this practice, but hey, more GPL software is good for everyone !
    However some issues arise, say I write a patch for their program, and they incorporate it. If some then buys a 'commercial license' they are selling MY patch under a non Free license...
    Furthermore, the FSF has announces an updated GPL in a few months... something tells me that the FSF might be tempted to make this sort of things impossible, since, if you look at it straighly this is a bit fishy.

    Just my 2 cents.

    • Re:GPL + Commercial (Score:2, Insightful)

      by batboy78 ( 255178 )
      However some issues arise, say I write a patch for their program, and they incorporate it. If some then buys a 'commercial license' they are selling MY patch under a non Free license...

      That is a very good question. What happens when someone makes a patch for a piece of GPL software and the parent company incorporates it into its tree. Is the patcher compensated? Are they legally able to turn around and sell their product? Or do they get away with selling "support" and not the actual product?

      • Re:GPL + Commercial (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It is completely legal for them if you submit the patch under the terms of their agreement, which states that whenever you submit a patch to them you are granting them the permission to distribute it under dual-license. They cannot, however, say.. take a GPL patch that's either floating around in the wild or off of a forked version and then distribute it under a non-GPL license.

        You have to explicitly grant them the right to dual-license (submission == permission in this case).

      • Re:GPL + Commercial (Score:2, Informative)

        by Gldm ( 600518 )
        In my opinion, they must either have:

        1) an agreement with the patch author to redistribute his/her code in the commercial version, which may involve some kind of compensation

        or

        2) a licensing clause detailing what parts of the commercial software are under different licenses as they've been submitted by other authors, and prompt the user to agree with those other licenses or remove the "patch" functionality

        or

        3) seperate installations of their base code and the modified "patch" code with seperate license agreements and credits for them

        At least that's how I plan to do it. I want to do something similar to this with my own software but I really could use some experienced advice on it.

        I think number 3 is not that unreasonable an option. The company could continue selling their "commercial" package as is, and then add a "bonus CD" full of GPL enhancements, updates, etc that the user may install seperately. As long as they're not absorbed into the product, and the user knowingly agrees to the different license terms for each, it should be fine.

      • Re:GPL + Commercial (Score:5, Insightful)

        by amccall ( 24406 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @02:28AM (#4657513) Homepage
        (Standard IANAL). Usually this is handled by the company/group simply by requiring that any patches folded into the main tree have the copyright assigned to the Company/group developing it. The only problem would be if the company/group stole source code from a fork of the project, or they used a patch the developer did not agree to having this done with.

        Whenever you get QT, IIRC, all of the source code in Troll Tech's distribution is owned by Troll Tech, even if there are revised versions floating around for KDE, or distribution packages.

        There is no legal grey area here - developers can license there code under several licenses, and no reasonable change I can see to the GPL will stop that. Further, I can't see the FsF having any disare to put an end to the practice, as it is, in reality, supporting the end goal of Free Software.

        • But if you recieved the right to make your patch by agreeing to the GPL, then "by requiring that any patches folded into the main tree have the copyright assigned to the Company/group developing it" means you are assigning to them the right to distribute your patch under the GPL. They could use the patch freely so long as they don't distribute the patch or anything derived from it, but in order to do the latter they themselves have to accept the GPL on your patch. Yes?

    • Re:GPL + Commercial (Score:3, Insightful)

      by PeerCast ( 592579 )
      Lately I see more and more companies release their program/product under the General Public License, saying that, if you want to use it in a commercial product you have to buy a commercial license.

      I think its because alot of GPLd projects have been abused by both large companies and freeloading spy/adware makers. This is the main reason we have the commercial license in there at least. It would be great if we could do what MySQL [mysql.com] have manage to do, ie. stay GPLd and funded at the same time. As you say, an updated GPL license that clarified this a little better would be very welcomed. We`d certainly use it.

    • Re:GPL + Commercial (Score:5, Insightful)

      by scottmartinnet ( 306032 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @02:25AM (#4657502)
      The whole patch issue has been addressed. It comes down to the fact that by submitting a patch to a program under a certain licensing structure, you are implictly consenting to have your code licensed under the same structure. Why else would you have submitted the patch? And anyway, any patch that the original author would want to distribute as part of the application is almost certainly a derivitive work under copyright law, and not yours anyway, much like the way a second verse to a copyrighted song isn't yours.

      It's not fishy at all. In fact, it's very much what the GPL has in mind. The GPL is about letting people have the freedom to modify the code they run and to distribute those changes, rather than being forced to treat all software as a big black box that they have to beg vendors to fix when it breaks. (Well, that and disclaiming liability.) Giving people the additional freedom to keep those changes secret and still distribute the product is perfectly fine, as long as you wrote all the code (or it was given to you). As the owner of the a program, you have all rights to it, and can give any subset of those rights you want in exchange for anything. There's nothing the GPL can do about that, short of adding a "belongs to RMS" clause.

      The GPL is not about keeping money away from code.

      Updates to the GPL are going to be about closing the loophole of web applications and the like, not about this.
      • "Giving people the additional freedom to keep those changes secret and still distribute the product is perfectly fine, as long as you wrote all the code (or it was given to you)."

        But if the people who are distributing modifications to you are accepting the GPL in order to do so, then you don't get to reliscense the GPL-ed code as commercial. The patch can't be "given" to you without the "secret" be distributed and hence GPL-ed.

  • Shhhh... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Quaoar ( 614366 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @01:47AM (#4657381)
    Keep quiet...the universities might hear us!

  • RIAA leaked it? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Exiler ( 589908 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @01:50AM (#4657392)
    Phase 1: Get source.
    Phase 2: GPL it and have the servers Slashdotted.
    Phase 3: ?????
    Phase 4: Profit!

    Yea yea, this is COMEDY people. I'm not quite that paranoid... .>

  • The PeerCast FAQ (Score:5, Informative)

    by Max Romantschuk ( 132276 ) <max@romantschuk.fi> on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @01:51AM (#4657394) Homepage
    The PeerCast FAQ [peercastwiki.com] is a good introduction to PeerCast.

  • ...agree to the following condition... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cheese Cracker ( 615402 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @01:56AM (#4657413)
    You must not connect to the main PeerCast network if you have modified any of the code in the `core` module.

    Yeah sure... how many crackers will adhere to this condition?

  • one good application... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @02:00AM (#4657437)
    if it's not already obvious to you already after reading the main page, would be for the small internet radio station.
    one of my favorite audio programs comes from a local club down the street, who streams their dj shows. they have limited bandwidth, and can only support 10 128KBit streams simultaneously. i often can't listen to some of the live shows, because there are no more available connections.
    with this software, now the number of listeners is unlimited... yay!!

    • Unless the user is firewalled, or is using NAT. I'll be glad when they can force people to share so leeches cant abuse the system.

      BTW, dont use 128K mp3, use 64K ogg, just as good, 1/2 the bandwidth. Also peercast supports ogg metadata, if your on ISDN(or idsl) you can actually listen to CD quality streaming music without pauses. Very cool.
      • Peercast also supports firewalled nodes. Streams can both be pushed and pulled. The only problem is that two firewalled nodes can't connect to each other directly. A firewalled node can push streams to none firewalled nodes and it can pull streams from none firewalled nodes.

    • with this software, now the number of listeners is unlimited... yay!!

      Apparently it appears so. But the fact is that the bandwidth would again limit it. Well the server will need only one or 2 user BW, but what if you have somebody behind a firewall and dosent want to share... You have a broken chain. In the ideal world everybody would share, and you can have 1000 listeners on 100 K orginal source, but in the real world around 20% will be willing to share.

      • Re:Not quite unlimited (Score:3, Insightful)

        by adolf ( 21054 )
        I think that your 20% figure is rather low, and greatly overestimates the level of knowledge posessed by today's typical internet user[1].

        I therefore submit the following conjecture:

        70% of bandwidth-equipped internet users are too stupid to do anything at all about sharing. 1/3 of these people are behind Linksys routers that they know nothing about, or are otherwise irrevocably firewalled.

        This leaves about 46% of the unwashed masses sharing by default. That's about 32% of the whole Internet populace can do nothing but share, because they don't know any better.

        And then there's the remaining 30%-big category of people who might be able to control whether or not they share with any surety.

        A third of the people in this group are spiteful leeches and will never share. Another third favor equality, and will make an effort to give back what they take. And the remaining third are intelligent enough to realize that the more people share, the lesser the individual bandwidth penalty for sharing becomes. This latter group will spew forth as much data as needs dictate and their connection permits, thus cancelling the antisocial efforts of the spiteful portion.

        Thus, on average, 62% of all internet users share.

        This means that to sustain a stream, this 62% sharing majority of users will need to relay the program to an average of 1.6 people each. Some will do a bit more, some a bit less.

        My RR cable modem wouldn't even notice if I started streaming at 50kbps (which sounds remarkably good with ogg) to 4 or 5 other people, let alone the paltry 1 or 2 listeners that such a system as this requires to stay healthy.

        That all said, it'd sure be nice if multicast IP became a widespread reality. It'd put all of these issues to bed with much haste...

        1: See "Jargon File," under section titled "The September that never ended."

  • is anyone else sick of the suffix cast? (Score:4, Funny)

    by CySurflex ( 564206 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @02:04AM (#4657451)
    cuz to tell you the truth I feel like we're being typecast as a bunch of peercasting multicasters who just broadcast our dreamcasts through comcast.

  • P2P week on slashdot? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SystematicPsycho ( 456042 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @02:46AM (#4657558)
    Whats with all the p2p? Nevertheless, if any p2p network is going to survive, it needs both a legally and technically sound framework, each as important as each other. Just my 2 cents.

  • An interesting inference (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tanveer1979 ( 530624 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @04:05AM (#4657698) Homepage Journal
    Consider this, RIAA says 1$ per user, okay the radio station beams to one user, and that user passes it along. RIAAs jurisdiction will end at that point, ie the point of radio station. Beyond the radio station what the user is doing with stream is not under their control, unless some CARPA/DARPA bullshit comes to tackle it. So you can have live365 type stations take a breather. They can have only 5 streams, thats damn cheap by current rates, and the listenrs keep passing it along.

    I am not too sure what legal redressal RIAA has against this thing, I doubt if there is any right now. Could anyone enlighten me?

    Frankly speaking this could be a big coupe. Even if they change laws etc( I doubt that will be any time soon) they cant go running after everybody in the chain. If this network gets to be big, the hounds have a big task ahead of them. The only possible redressal for them is if they get the govt to ban the internet itself!

    Guess what, technology always stays ahead...

  • After reading through some of the message boards on their homepage, it seems the questions of it being released under a GPL type license were not met with too open of arms.

    Interesting thread [peercast.org] to read here. It will be interesting to see if this works or is just a stunt to pull in a bigger listener base to increase the network size. After all from the looks of that license, it seems to leave an out for everyone else to do the coding and them to sell it as a commercial product.

    • Re:peercast (Score:3, Insightful)

      by PeerCast ( 592579 )
      Actually, that thread was about "when" not "if" it was going to be OSd.

      The license is GPL if you don`t intend it sell your app, its commercial if you do. Which I think is fair, unless you think we should spend our time coding so other people can make money?

      Its quite funny because some not to unknown people advised us not to make it OS; "you`re damned if you do, damned if you don`t" they said.
      I can see why now ;-)
      • "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does. "

        So if they download, isn't it GPL? Don't they have to mail you first to get to commercial standing?

      • The license is GPL if you don`t intend it sell your app, its commercial if you do

        ok, but what if YOU decide to sell it? Do individual contributors get compensated for your gains. If so, then yes, there could be no more fair of an agreement.

        Which I think is fair

        Wow, you mean you actually think the agreement you made up for your own software is fair...shocking!!! Id wager 99/100 contract writers think the contract is fair, the important part is how its percieved by the users

        • ok, but what if YOU decide to sell it? Do individual contributors get compensated for your gains. If so, then yes, there could be no more fair of an agreement.

          If there was a realistic way of doing that then yes we would. Suggestions?

          Wow, you mean you actually think the agreement you made up for your own software is fair...

          Do you think the MySQL licensing agreement is fair?

          • If there was a realistic way of doing that then yes we would. Suggestions?

            Sure, compensate contributors...the rest is up to you, its your business model. Either it works or it doesnt

            Do you think the MySQL licensing agreement is fair?

            it must be fair to those that use it, as for me personally, dont have a need to use it. Interesting tangent though.

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