Anonnn, while I certainly understand and appreciate your idea to set up an open-source ONLY network, I must bring to light an important fact.. that is while I'm sure that you support the idea of free and open access to all, thus being the idea behind Open Source, your idea contradicts these fundamentals.

By locking out other networks and restricting access, you are replaying the recent situation with AOL Instant Messenger and Trillian. Locking users out will only serve to alienate your cause.

Users need a choice, now they have one. It's totally up to them what they do with this.
Do you trust the users to make the right choice, or do you force them to be victims of corporate greed with no choice?

Before this I had no choice.
For example: it seems that when I connect to one BearShare node, then others connect back till I have nothing but BearShare nodes connected. (I am using Gnucleus)
I search and most of the results come from BearShare nodes.
I don't know about you, but BearShare people don't seem to know what good music is. I have my own tastes you know.
So now I can selectivly block BearShare or Morpheus, or even Gnucleus and move around the network to find my music or any other rare files.
It's so nice to have that choice!
If I hear something on the forums here about a client getting greedy, or spying on it's users, I have the choice to block that client and not support it by letting it use my computer network resources.
When I hear that that client has removed the spyware, I can simply change a few settings and that client is not on my bad list anymore.
Power to the people!
If I hear that a old client is creating a problem for the network, I can simply add it to my list to help the network without waiting for a developer group to decide what to do.
What could be so wrong with giving the users a choice?

That's silly logic, and it doesn't wash with me. You could apply the same method of thinking to many things. Of course users have a choice, but frankly, no, I don't trust alot of them to make the right one.

By the same token, do you force users to be victims of a smaller, less free network?

What I am perceiving from this message is that you want the choice to exclude BearShare users. I suppose that could be a personal choice, although I don't completely understand the rationalle towards it. I used to use BearShare, simply because someone recommended it to me as a good file-sharing tool. Does that mean that I don't have good taste in music? That's not really for anyone to say.

The Gnutella network was founded on the principles of open source. As soon as someone starts selectively choosing exactly WHO is allowed to get that open access, you are contributing to the degradation of the service.

Adware is a fact of life now. I don't use it personally, but it is out there, and that can't be helped. The fact remains that BearShare has contributed to the success of the Gnutella network. A vast amount of files are online because of BearShare, and I don't think that there's anything wrong with that.

With most clients you can manually block IPs, cancel uploads and remove nodes from the connection screen, so what makes this so different?
The only difference I see is that I can have the computer do it rather than use my mouse.

You're completely missing my point. Typically, a person wouldn't cancel an upload based solely on the client the downloader has chosen to use.

As I understand it, the goal of the OpenSource p2p network is to discourage the use of commercial gain from the Gnutella network. That's fine, and I support the idea. I don't however, support the method in which this aim is being achieved. By excluding select users based on their client, you are hurting the end user, as opposed to the client's developer.

You hurt both!

What do you suggest?

Morgwen

Maybe the corporate clients will move to their own private network, then the users can pick what network they want to be on, one with greed and pop up ads, or the ad free one.
Either way it's all up to the users and the community, they now have the power.

I suggest continuing on the way we are going right now, with for-profit and not-for-profit clients co-existing. The user should be able to choose which client he or she would rather use, rather than being forced to use a spyware-free client in order to access specific nodes.

Yes, you are right. The users and the community have the power, just as they always have. Let's continue to ensure that freedom, by allowing users to continue file-sharing with anyone, without being forced to use specific clients.

Even if the OpenSource p2p network is successful, the for-profit client developers will simply adapt their software to be able to access the OpenSource network. And I would support that, in fact.

I'll say it again: I do not support the idea of limiting peoples' ability to share files with each other.