Oh, Vinnie (alias Freepeers, developer of Bearshare) thinks about blocking Xolox again: http://www.bearshare.net/forum/showt...&threadid=8616.

He blames Xolox to be responsible alone for high Query/Queryhit traffic caused from automatc requeries without a proof/analysis Xolox is unhealthy... or more unhealthy compared to other clients (Phex, Gnucleus)... or how healthy Bearshare will be when running automatic requeries for resuming in future. In fact requeries are a must-have for automatic resuming and fast multisegmented downloading (e.g. when a host drops). No fact is which client has a unhealthy behaviour (e.g. Xolox has a seldom requery, not requerying each filename). This story remembers me somhow to Vinnies old statements that Xolox is allegedly bad (link 1 2), marketing?

This story raises also some interesting questions: Should we really block unhealthy clients and what are the criterias for a "healthy" client? When are we allowed to block clients? Criterias for a good client might be.... good allround behaviour, forbidding freeloading, not creating wrong files, not misuse the network by broadcasting proprietary data, still in active development, not spreading blatant spyware, cooperative behaviour with other clients and vendors?

Some thoughts, Moak

PS: When Vinnie really blocks one client, without pubic discussion + no proof of bad behaviour... someone just has to patch Xolox.exe again and alter Xolox's vendor ID (more Klingon behaviour is optional). Since Xolox is still one of the most favourite client (users choice), Vinnie's idea to block them could put Bearshare into a better marketing position... pehaps it makes Bearshare a parasite (allow downloading from Xolox, not allowing downloads with Xolox).