[Pipet Users] Why Gnutella Can't Scale. No, Really.

[J.W. Bizzaro]

Jarl van Katwijk wrote:
> 
> Did somebody with enough math knowledge read this and can post some
> comments on this whether or not this applies to Piper?

I'll briefly note that Piper may avoid the "Gnutella problem" two ways:

(1) Compared to Gnutella, very little information will be passed between
instances of Piper.  Program *SERVICES* are shared; programs themselves remain
put.  I think data transfers will be like serving web pages.  Compare that to
Gnutella transferring 2-4 MB mp3 files.

(2) There will be computers on the Net, running Piper, that act more like
"servers" than "clients".  Some will be computers serving scientific
applications.  Unlike Gnutella, where people are almost purely interested in
"getting" (music, pr0n), many Piper instances will be running specifically to
provide a service (bioinformatics and other programs).

Cheers.
Jeff
-- 
J.W. Bizzaro                                           jeff at bioinformatics.org
Director, Bioinformatics.org: The Open Lab     http://bioinformatics.org/~jeff
"All those scientists--they're all alike!  They say they're working for us,
but what they really want is to rule the world!" 
  -- Angry Villager, Young Frankenstein
--