http://www.gnutella2.com/


Level One: A New Protocol
Gnutella2 introduces a flexible new protocol to support current and future P2P technologies. Packets are compact binary trees of named data items, which allow multi-vendor information nesting and augmentation, selective digital signing and other exciting features. Existing data structures can be modified and improved without disrupting deployed software, and advanced topics such as UNICODE support are handled in a uniform manner.

Level Two: A New Data Transport ArchitectureGnutella2 provides two interdependent data transport mechanisms: reliable compressed TCP streams, andan unreliable and semi-reliable UDP transport provider. The combination of these two systems allow higherlevel G2 constructs to take maximum advantage of network conditions to deliver data packets quicklyand efficiently, with or without assured delivery, within bandwidth requirements and without unnecessaryoverhead.

Level Three: A New Set of Base ServicesGnutella2 takes full advantage of the first two levels to deliver an exciting new set of distributedpeer-to-peer services. Controlled global object searching is implemented using an iterative walkerapproach, with selective out of band response delivery and translation. Combined with an abstractcomponent interest/response query model, this system goes beyond what is available in any other P2Pplatform. The Gnutella Addressing System (GAS) provides the ability to reach arbitary nodes basedon a known identifier, regardless of their connection method.

Level Four: A New Implementation StandardOne of the problems facing the legacy Gnutella network was the varying level of support for criticalnetwork features in different clients. The Gnutella2 Standard requires clients to implement thefirst two levels completely, as well as the dual transport providers with some form of intelligent bandwidth control, 1-bit universal QHT, simple search response, basic metadata (at minimum),simple query language, link compression, root tigertree as the primary URN, HTTP/1.1, partialtransfer and sharing. If able to operate as a hub, the full set of generic routing rules must besupported. Support for G1 is recommended but not required.

G2 is a new beginning for the Gnutella network : an open, scalable and flexible protocol designed to support current and future P2P technologies.
Full specifications will be available soon.

I would think they would have too. And there will be discussions and more dicussions... *sigh* But eventually they will have to- gnutella is losing users to kazaa everyday and gnut's userbase shrinking. Its the same complaints over and over again- gnutella (g1) is slow, ineffiecent, and and feels like dinosaur when compared to Kazza, which is actually quite true!

I know shareaza shouldn't have released it- but they did and by releasing a beta g2 to the public they've opened a pandora's box. I like limewire, I admire its open-standard -like approach, but LW and Bearshare and the other giants will be dragged kickingn and screaming to upgrade whether they agree with the G2 or not. There's just too much user demand.

I hope someone could comment on the differences between GUESS and the G2. Are they the same? please feel free agree or disagree with my comments.

There has not been any definitve comment by the LimeWire crew on that topic yet. It will depend on the specs of gnutella2, that are (according to Shareaza Mike) going to be released once Shareaza 1.7 final is released. So far, Gnutella2 is a closed protocol and you can only make guesses on how good or bad it is.

The whole gnutella2 issue caused a lot of discussion on the GDF. First, Shareaza implements a new protocol without even giving the other developers the chance to comment on that or publicly releasing it. - Then they call it gnutella2, which might lead people to the assumption that this was indeed the 2.0 version of the gnutella protocol. (Actually a project called gnutella2 existed long before Shareaza picked the name up: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnutella2 ).

I suspect that LimeWire will not implement Gnutella2.

Level one: The new messages will require a lot of rewriting, testing and so on and if I were a developer I'd think twice before implementing two sets of network messages for basically the same tasks instead of just adding a few additional messages maintaining the basic structure of regular gnutella messages (the way BearShare did it).

Level two: might be an approach to use UDP for data transfer. If they want to use it only for messages it would be covered by GUESS. If they wanted however to use it for file transfers or streaming media I would not consider that a good idea at all.

Level three: seems to be one part GUESS and another part CHORD.

And as for level four - I could only make vague assumptions about what that should mean.

I guess everyone will wait till the specs are released, there
are still some doubts about the scalability and security of the
new protocol, so I guess we all have to wait....