In the recent weeks the discussion in the gnutella-developers-forum about the automated searches generated by Phex has really heated up. Here is what I had to take in:

Vinnie (of Bearshare) was as arrogant as I expected it:
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The "re-search" feature must be eliminated or changed to a MAXIMUM of
one additional query per 30 minutes TOPS!

This is not open to debate!

Greg? Speak up, boy, lest these upstarts destroy what we have built.
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A guy who calls himself "Brown Tiger" and claims to develop his own client is even more direct:
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My client is almost ready, it has features to take
BearShare and Lime, and you would not like what I do
to your searches or search result I return, or even
what would happend to your incoming... I guarantee you
this this.

Tiger
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Greg Bidson from Limewire in contrast seems to be reasonable and intelligent:
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Konrad,

You definitely should be given enough time to develop a viable methodology.
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But all in all the tone is rather harsh and most developers seem to be incredibly intolerant and arrogant. I was really surprised by Vinnie who claims to "have built"(!!!) the gnutella network. But I don´t want to be forced to develop Phex under this pressure and I can´t even be sure to ever satisfy the needs of the major developers. If Bearshare and Limwire really implement features to render Phex unusable it will be the end of this software.

I was wondering what would happen if some commercial developers suceeded in monopolizing gnutella, but I didn´t expect to see this so soon. They have the power and they are willing to use it. If things don´t go their way they are "not open to debate!".

Fine. Perhaps I will develop Phex further and add tons of features to disguise it and make the blocking of it completely impossible. I can think of about 5 ways to do this spontaneusly. But this wouldn´t be the software I wanted to provide.

This is the reason why I will quit the official leadership in the development of Phex. If someone wants to get this position, just let me know and I will transfer the administrative sourceforge rights to you.

Regards,
Konrad Haenel


Thanks:

Thanks to all the users and developers who made Phex what it is now. The support was overwhelming and I really got that enlightening "open-source-experience". Thanks also go to sourceforge, I wonder how they can provide all these services for free. Respect goes to Greg Bidson from Limewire who tried to find a solution for the problem instead of simply threatening me. Special thanks go to Alexander Werth, Gregor Koukkoullis (I hope I spelled that right), Marks Saltzman and Hael Lorande. And very special thanks go to all those gnutella user who actually provide ressources and files to the network, I think you are the ones who really "built" it.


If you want to read the whole discussion you can do so here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_gdf

Konrad,

I hope you change your mind and decide to stay and develop phex. You and the phex developers have had some very good and innovative ideas that we can all benefit from.

I wish the GDF didn't resort to the occasional threats and diatribes on various subjects. I have learned to ignore comments when they are over-the-top. Hopefully, you should do the same. I try to stay away from doing the same on most occasions - although I'm not perfect.

If you have ever had to work with a lot of developers, I'm sure you know that they can be pig-headed and convinced that it is their way or the highway. Most programmers that I have met (myself included) have a tendancy to think that they are gods gift to the programming and architectural design world. Extend that to a distributed Gnutella network where there is no active Linus Torvad or Ian Clarke type figure that can take original credit and rein in some extremes, and it explains why the Gnutella development community is more in-your-face than nurturing. Unfortunately, we all would benefit by less of the former and more of the latter.

Keeping the benefits of network effect in the Gnutella network development community is a constant struggle between self-interest and community interest. For the good of all, community interests generally has to take precident.

What happened in this situation is a combination of all these factors. The community is right that there is a problem with machine generated queries if done too single-mindedly. However, there is little immediate benefit from helping with your development (but longer-term gain) and the GDF was less than encouraging to your efforts. On my part, we appologize and wish that you would stay and help build the best and most diverse Gnutella network possible.

Thanks
-greg

LimeWire - Not just another pretty face.

I hate it when I forget to log in.

-greg

>>Vinnie (of Bearshare) was as arrogant as I expected it:

>"The "re-search" feature must be eliminated or changed to a >MAXIMUM of one additional query per 30 minutes TOPS!"

This was not arrogance. I haven't had an arrogant comment in a while.

It was merely a translation into laymans terms of what had already been mentioned numerous times regarding machine-generated queries on the network.

Konrad I really wish you would reconsider, there are so many people out there that love your program and would follow you through think and thin. People like me. I can't believe the shmack you've gotten! Doesn't any one understand that Phex is always changing, evolving and getting better. It wouldn't of been long before you found a fix. Vinnie, I almost understand you. You have put your sweat and blood into this program, this network, this community. Then along comes some wiper-snaper and just starts to destroy that. But I think your confused here, this network was meant to be open and to evolve. That was the original thought behind it at least! Remember the first Gnutella client and even the few clones after that for about a year, the Gnutella network was shambles! Dropped connections, unreliable downloads, clogging chat packets, the ever expanding search and ping packets! Look how far we have come! Guess what, you didn't fix all of that! You may of helped but it was the work of thousands of people that pulled it all together. Some, many we will never know about, made those simple websites with how-to's and FAQ's all for the better of the Gnutella community! Others made new gnutella clients and molded the protocol to what it is today.

Now I see that the community is in a uproar! Yelling and threating! All the way we have come it starts to melt down!
We all need to step back and look at what we have accomplished! A new comer has been shot down, instead of helping them. Why not tell them what you have done, and your ideas instead of scolding. We've grown up now, remember.

I'm not here to pick fights, just stating my opinion. Please work together, like Greg, being polity and giving a little time means less frustration.
Last I would like to explain the title of the post: I found it funny that the people putting on a lot of the pressure made windows only clients. Sounds like a larger company that's having legal trouble, right now. Because of forcing the small company's out of business in one way or another (MS).

JC / macXster

Visit http://macxster.n3.net/konrad.html

My best side shows when other people's greed and arrogance drives me on... I did not write the code base that's been made, but I have theorized about Gnutella before I knew it existed(trying to make an unhackable Diablo/Starcraft tournament system... Basically with enough watchers, you can't change your stats... But what ends up being a hierarchical web page mirroring system governed by facist police is a different story.)

P2P should be free, and effort for the other developers to squash the others is a result of a capitalistic society... In a good world, people wouldn't compete... But people do... I'm really you are thinking of quitting Konrad... I hope you reconsider, and look at it like a crusade. A crusade to build quality free software in order to empty the pockets of the companies with deep pockets.

I think Phex is best for two reasons.

First it comes mainly from my moral standpoint. I don't think people should stoop to spyware and stuff that should be illegal. If I meet the person who made Bearshare on the streets, It'd take alot not to physically attack him.

Secondly I like Phex because of its autodownload system. You enter a few files you want, leave Phex on, and eventually you'll get the files... I wrote papers on how entire seasons, and cultures could be downloaded with this technology if its expanded.

I make a great deal of money doing stupid stuff on the internet, and I have a deal of spare time to work on a noble project. If I had some basic support on these forums, I'm sure I could help out.

I have a great vision for Phex
It can make downloading all the media you like as easy as 1 click.

The knowledge I can gain from Phex will allow me to finally implement the following theories that I don't have the coding knowledge to implement:
#1) Unhackable Web site mirroring and distributed computing processing by untrusted sites.
A: Dirt simple figure it out yourself.

#2) Multiple servers handling a single client-
A: in case one server goes down- you got others
B: If the client's bandwith pipe isn't maximized with contact with just one server, the possibility of getting data sooner from a different server speeds your connection/gameplay


Threats work opposite on me... You threaten to take me down, I mark you as someone I distaste and work even harder so you don't accomplish your goals.

Konrad_h, don't quit...

If you must quit, consider hanging around to help me with questions about your code. I hate corporations about as much as I love Gnutella, and I especially love Phex.

So maybe hang around and help me out. I may ask what seem to be newbie questions, but I pick up really fast.

Hey Konrad,

Just take a few weeks off and enjoy the summer.
But don't quit, you seem like a intelligent person both technically and socially.

greetings, RaaF

Konrad: Perhaps you´re right. Keeping Phex up to date was much more consuming then I ever expected. Perhaps I will continue developing it someday, but I wouldn´t count on it for now.

from dictionary.com...

arrogant
1) Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance.
2) Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others: an arrogant contempt for the weak.

Let me ask you, who made you God of gnutella Vinnie? Maybe you have good intentions but you have a serious attitude problem, maybe its because of the crappy forumns you had at bearshare.com.

BTW how can I block Bearshare from my phex? I dont want to let Bearshare users access to my files, there by seperating myself from the "Vinnie-network" as someone here has said. LOL

Hallo Konrad:

Ohne Phex wäre die Gnutellalandschaft ein großes Stück ärmer; nicht nur, daß ein sehr vielversprechender guter freier Servent verschwände, auch die Dominanz der Großen würde nur noch größer.
Klar, Vinnies Gehabe geht mir als Benutzer schon schwer auf den Nerv, und zusammen mit dem restlichen Ärger Dir als Programmierer sicherlich noch mehr. Nimm doch einfach (wie schon jemand sagte) einen dicken Urlaub und ein bißchen Abstand, und überleg's Dir noch einmal mit dem Aufhören. Wir würden uns sehr freuen, wenn Du wiederkommst :).
Gut, ich will nur noch schnell sagen, daß die meisten meiner Freunde hier in FR Phex benutzen, und daß ich hoffe, daß das Wetter in München besser ist...

Viele solidarische Grüße
Christian

Well, for the about some time Ive been running every client reading every paper on Gnutella and other P2P,
as Im writing my finishing paper for the University (My final year)...

After running every peace of software that exists and clamed to do P2P, my preference goes to the Gnutella community and for the past 4-5 months Ive been running Phex (24h) mostly because of the automatic search it does... (Gnucleus also does that)

One given fact is that the Gnutella isn´t about the clients one runs but the users it has running clients, we all know that, as for Bearshare I dislike some of the "perks" it has, but I must agree that many of "us" are running it because its easy of use, some dont care about nothing else that what Gnutella can do for them (or even what Gnutella is about) and not what they can do for Gnutella...

As for Konrad, I realy think he has taken the easy path and it´s doing what the so called "Commercial Developers" expect, and leave it free to take over this network and make some profit of it...

I agree that most of the blame of thing getting to this point is ours, as for myself this is my first post (and hope contribution) to the subject, Ill try to do more in the future...

Some things to keep on mind is that:
1) There must not be any profit ($) to be had in developing anything to the Gnutella.
2) A true client for Gnutella must always be Open Source (for security reasons, quick evolution and for the sake of good of the community over the sake of the one).
3) The client (I prefer to call it a Peer) must run in as many OS as possible...

If some client doesn't comply with this rules it because of some hiden agenda or the twisted undestanding of what think Gnutella is about.

As for Bearshare, some times it´s so easy to grasp what others intentions are that it hurts, the developer is good, very good, first he grabs a large share of the network and now it can clame to say things like "This is not open to debate! ", who the hell made him king of the hill he realy must think he is the bigest thing to came after Elvis, "It was merely a translation into laymans terms of what had...", he realy is full of himself,
this interperetantion of sense of community must be stoped ASAP, or we risk to some day wake up and see that there is no more Gnutella and the only think that remains is Vinnie NetWork or something like that because after all he even seem to who claim to "have built" it.
Vinnie, Im sorry to desapoint you but the Network was and is still being built by all of us, but you r right in one point some of "us" are building it with YOUR Bearshare, beacause they are to lame to grasp the meaning of Gnutella (I belieave if you switched to an alternative network things would improve because, most of the people running Bearshare realy think like you, and don't like to "share").

About that one, In my travels on the WEB some times I find myself LOL after reading some thing like in http://www.zeropaid.com/ there we can have a look of the near future were there is Bearshare and there is Gnutella...

Please people make some peers that can be used also by brain dead people , but remember to "make" them share...

Let´s see if this is just some error on communications, and if after the dust setles there is still room for us all...

For now Ill try to take this weekend and register myself (I haven't done it yet because I realy don´t like to register as u can c, Im a bit paranoid) on the Phex Project and spread the word, hope you all take some action and protect what you love...

I have some clues how to help solve the "so bad" seaches, that made me love Phex...

BTW: take a look at http://reptile.openprivacy.org/ project... and if you havent done it yet try Phex out.

PANIC