Re: returning results for partial downloads

Serguei Osokine wrote:
> 	But is the best fighter algorithm necessarily the best one for
> the network as a whole? Let's say you have two algorithms: 'generous
> giver' and 'shameless leecher'. You load them on the network, and
> shameless leacher beats the generous giver hands down in you metrics
> of bytes downloaded per bytes uploaded. But does it mean that the
> shameless leecher algorithm has any useful qualities? Not necessarily.
> 
> 	Am I missing something in what you're going to do?

You're right, it's possible that selfish algorithms won't benefit the
network, but in the context of the prisoner's dilemma all of the
successful algorithms have been both selfish and cooperative. All-out
defection (ie leeching) is only successful in short games (which could
be another reason for making the decision about who to share with as
fine-grained as possible - more "rounds" in which to determine who's
reciprocating and who's leeching).

Leechers beat generous givers hands down, but they don't beat utility
maximisers, because utility maximisers prefer to upload to other utility
maximisers in order to receive downloads in return. They quickly
determine that leechers offer nothing in return, so they don't upload to
them - as in BitTorrent, that means leechers get little or no service.
They aren't excluded from the network, just passed over.

Cheers,
Michael