Summary
This
P2P file system aims to enable high-speed uploading of
commonly
shared data from peers to your machine as you need it. Your disk
then
caches
this data for your use, and for use by others when they need it.
As a second-generation protocol, benefiting from the
BitTorrent experience, file download speeds will be greatly increased,
and support for live video streaming enabled. Entire file systems
will be supported, along with rudimentary version control. ISP
caching will be supported, lowering overall costs, and improving the
on-line experience.
Draft Protocol Specification
The
preliminary spec has been completed, and a compatible client is
currently under development. Anyone wishing to contribute
should check out the following link, and feel free to join the discussion list, or e-mail me
directly at bill@billrocks.org.
Draft Protocol Specification Use Cases
- Samsung
wants to us a high-end OS on its new wifi-enabled G4 smartphone.
It only has 512 meg of flash devoted to program memory, as
the
remaining 15 gig is for music and other media. So conserving
file
system space is important to Samsung's users. But Samsung
wants to run a high-end
Ubuntu-Mobile distribution, and doesn't want to pick-and-choose between
default
installed packages. NetFS allows Samsung to effectively
install the
whole distribution. As users use their device, only files
they actually
use get downloaded (over the G4 network) and locally cached, creating
a 10X improvement in
the number of applications they can easily access.
- Mary
wants to try running Ubuntu on her new workstation, which is always
on-line. She hates that she will have to figure out what packages
Ubuntu leaves out
compared to the distribution she currently runs - Fedora. As
a
high-profile coder, Mary needs many of Fedora's packages that are
missing in Ubuntu's default installation. So, she installs
Ubuntu-Bloated-Edition,
built
on NetFS. By default, it contains every Debian/Ubuntu package
available, more than 20,000 packages. She saves time, disk
space,
network bandwidth, and most importantly - she wont have to poke
around and figure out what to install.
- Project
Gutenberg's e-book servers are costing the charitable organization too
much money, while users experience long download delays.
BitTorrent can't help with these small files, so Gutenberg
and
it's mirrors bear the full cost. Gutenberg asks users to
install
NetFS, and to download e-books that way. Bandwidth costs
drop, while user download speeds improve.
- Nicole runs a popular on-line video site from her basement.
Her
40KB/sec upload speed has become a major obstacle, and she doesn't want
to upgrade to a T1.
She encourages her viewers to use NetFS, and enjoys watching
her
user base grow by 10,000X, all driven from an old PC and a DSL line.
- A
popular ISP is getting killed with BitTorrent traffic, which keeps
encrypting streams and changing ports, so traffic shaping and file caching isn't
working. The ISP encourages users to switch to NetFS for their
legal file downloads, and runs a file caching server, reducing
expensive external network traffic, while improving their customer's on-line experience.
- A
popular Linux distro creates a live CD for installation. Rather
than the usual install-everything, then update-all, thus re-installing
most things, they put their packages in a NetFS directory. The
live CD boots, and installs the current version of all packages on the first go,
eliminating the need to update after a clean install, while reducing
the size of the live CD to only 64MB. Users download packages at full bandwidth,
yet cost the distro almost nothing. While running off-line, users
have full access to every package they installed, exactly as if they'd
never used NetFS. Overall installation time drops.
- A
popular file download site suffers from frequent DDoS attacks,
frustrating users. After switching to NetFS, users can still
download, even when the main site is off-line. Download times improve as well.
- A
sports enthusiast tires of poor TV coverage of local college games, and
takes it upon himself to fix it. From his cell phone, Tom
broadcasts his team's game to the entire world, costing him nothing.
Benefits vs Bittorrent- Support for data streaming, such as live video
- Dynamic incremental updates for whole file systems, rather than just large file downloads
- Much faster download time for DSL/Cable users (see BTslave for reasons why)
- Mush faster download times for large newly-released files (again, see BTslave)
- Simpler browsing for files. Just use a file-finder program
- Interconnected web of file systems enables NetFS surfing, and Google-like indexing
- Open-source spec and implementation
- Users are generally available for file sharing when on-line, greatly improving download times and file availability
- Friendlier ISP caching support
- Publishers can sign entire file systems
- Built-in revision control, and ability to switch between versions
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