Vinnie,

This is a proprietary message that BearShare uses for determining the version number, newer versions, and measurement of the FreePeers horizon in the Statistics page...
The information contained in these messages is proprietary and
confidential.

You're contradicting yourself here. You say these messages are confidential, but you don't mind telling us what's in them? Why not open them so we can all see what's going on? Sounds to me like there's something you're not telling us. Why the big secret? You sending your sourcecode out with every message? Or the secret family recipe for baked beans?

There have been many reactons to this proprietary technique. One is that it "breaks" the Gnutella protocol, or is not compliant with the protocol. However, nothing in the protocol specifies that queries have to be for files, or that search results must contain files. The "protocol" only defines the format of the messages so that applications may be interperable. I designed the encoding scheme so that it is easy to identify and deal with.

So you wouldn't mind if I wrote a servent that used query messages for chatting? Or how about if I used them to send advertizing banners to all of my servents (by way of everyone else, of course).

C'mon, Vinnie. Maybe other servents could adopt your "version info" messages to improve the network for us all. I fear that a war between servents (eg. developers) could easily kill this wonderful little network of ours.

I salute your efforts to preserve the speed and strength of the network... I salute your efforts to show restraint...

...but I believe you need to be the bigger man here. Show the other guys how a real servent is done. Don't squash them for doing it wrong. If all you did was write an essay describing the pitfalls you've identified and suggesting solutions... newer servents (by less experienced developers) would be less likely to do dumb stuff that screw up the network for the rest of us. You may not be trying to control the network, but your market dominance in some sense obligates you to take a leadership role here. Don't let them turn you into a tyrant. We believe you're above that.