Re: Why competing Gnutella clients help LimeWire

ein welt, ein netzwerk, ein klient
(please excuse the germanism)

Seriously, we will be publishing and discussing any of our ideas that are
not entirely lw-specific.  For example, Christian and myself have been
discussing the viability of using OOB exclusively and getting rid of qhit
routing.  On one hand this would save traffic, on the other it would make it
impossible for spammers to hide their ip (assuming OOBv3).  There are
obviously some disadvantages to this, so any suggestions from gdf people are
welcome.


On 4/2/07, Arne Babenhauserheide <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>   Hi,
>
> This is a short text explaining, why competing Gnutella clients help
> LimeWire,
> and why it is in the best interest of LimeWire to foster the GDF as
> development platform.
>
> In the Gnutella network, we have a friendly climate (please excuse the
> germanism) of working hand in hand and sharing ideas.
>
> Also the improvements in other Gnutella clients benefit LimeWire directly
> and
> indirectly:
> Directly they improve network health and increase the user base of
> Gnutella in
> general.
> Indirectly they create a pressure on LimeWire to improve further, which
> might
> be inconvenient in the short term, but will result in LimeWire becoming a
> better software on the long run.
>
> This constant evolution of the Gnutella protocol is what made it survive
> from
> the beginning, and it is vital the ongoing success of LimeWire, because
> competition in Gnutella means that someone says "hey I've got a great idea
>
> and I want everyone to profit from it" and then realizes that idea, which
> strengthens Gnutela as a whole.
>
> The competition from other networks means instead, that improvements are
> done
> mostly invisibly for anyone else and that Gnutella might fall behind the
> curve.
>
> So you need the friendly competition in Gnutella to stay fit for the
> harder
> competition between different p2p-networks.
>
> And you may even need the competition between different networks to stay
> fit
> for the even harder competition between different ways of searching,
> organizing and distributing information and data.
> And the competition in Gnutella can help you stay at the head of the
> network-crowd.
>
> So I want to ask you, not only in the interest of the community, but also
> in
> your own self-interest as LimeWire developers, to remember that your
> survival
> is directly bound to the GDF in the long run, and that it is in your own
> interest to cooperate with other Gnutella clients an ddevelopers.
> Other Gnutella clients are not your enemies but your friends with whom you
> can
> spar to be fit for the real battle.
>
> And they can fight alongside you in the battles to come.
>
> Also other Gnutella clients catch those users, who aren't happy with your
> decisions for the user interface (those people will aways exist), so those
>
> still stay in Gnutella and also contribute to LimeWires success that way,
> and
> so you can concentrate on making a clean interface which greatly pleases
> many
> but displeases some, instead of creating an interface which displeases
> everyone a little.
>
> So please open up you discussions and make your decisions and work more
> tranparent to other developers on the neutral ground of the GDF. It will
> benefit you in the long run (and might be crucial to your survival).
>
> Besides: This is true for any Gnutella client. I chose LimeWire as
> example,
> because they are in a position in which they could easily forget this
> simple
> relation between Gnutella clients right now.
>
> Best wishes,
> Arne Babenhauserheide
> - http://draketo.de
> PS: I help with the development of Phex, but I am interested in the health
> of
> the whole Gnutella network. It's the environment in which my contributions
>
> live, after all.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>  
>


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