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Upstart software projects Napster, Gnutella,
and Freenet have dominated newspaper headlines, challenging
traditional approaches to content distribution with their
revolutionary use of peer-to-peer file-sharing technologies.
Reporters try to sort out the ramifications of seemingly
ungoverned peer-to-peer networks. Lawyers, business leaders,
and social commentators debate the virtues and evils of
these bold new distributed systems. But what's really behind
such disruptive technologies -- the breakthrough innovations
that have rocked the music and media worlds? And what lies
ahead?
In this book, key peer-to-peer pioneers
take us beyond the headlines and hype and show how the technology
is changing the way we communicate and exchange information.
Those working to advance peer-to-peer as a technology, a
business opportunity, and an investment offer their insights
into how the technology has evolved and where it's going.
They explore the problems they've discovered, the lessons
they've learned, and their goals for the future of computer
networking.
Until now, Internet communities have been
limited by the flat interactive qualities of email and network
newsgroups, where people can exchange recommendations and
ideas but have great difficulty commenting on one another's
postings, structuring information, performing searches,
and creating summaries. Peer-to-peer challenges the traditional
authority of the client/server model, allowing shared information
to reside instead with producers and users. Peer-to-peer
networks empower users to collaborate on producing and consuming
information, adding to it, commenting on it, and building
communities around it.
This compilation represents the collected
wisdom of today's peer-to-peer luminaries. It includes contributions
from Gnutella's Gene Kan, Freenet's Brandon Wiley, Jabber's
Jeremie Miller, and many others -- plus serious discussions
of topics ranging from accountability and trust to security
and performance. Fraught with questions and promise, peer-to-peer
is sure to remain on the computer industry's center stage
for years to come.
Andy Oram has been writing and editing
books on programming and networking for O'Reilly & Associates
since 1992. He created the O'Reilly Linux series long before
Linux became mainstream and has spent considerable time
researching the social impacts of computing and networking.
He and his family live near Boston, Massachusetts.
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