Political and Technical Implications of GitTorrent 208
lkcl writes "The GitTorrent
Protocol (GTP) is a protocol for collaborative
git repository distribution across the Internet.
Git
promises to be a distributed software management tool, where a repository
can be distributed. Yet, the mechanisms used to date to actually
'distribute,' such as ssh, are very much still centralized.
GitTorrent makes
Git truly distributed. The initial plans are for reducing mirror
loading, however the full plans include totally distributed development:
no central mirrors whatsoever. PGP signing (an existing feature of git)
and other web-of-trust-based mechanisms will take over from protocols on ports
(e.g. ssh) as the access control 'clearing house.'
The implications of a truly distributed revision control system are
truly staggering: unrestricted software freedom. The playing field
is leveled in so many ways, as 'The Web Site' no longer becomes the
central choke-point of control. Coming just in time for that
all-encompassing Free Software revolution hinted at by
The Rebellion Against Vista,
this article will explain more fully
some of the implications that make this quiet and technically
brilliant project, GitTorrent,
so important to Software Freedom, from both technical and
political perspectives."
Davros, is that you? (Score:5, Funny)
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Comic Book Guy voice would be better.
no central mirrors
What
So
EVER!!!!
Re:Davros, is that you? (Score:4, Funny)
Reread the summary in Davros's voice, in creasing the volume and excitement as you get closer to the end. Come on -- it'll be fun.
What happens when you crease volume and excitement? Is it like one of those Mad fold-ins? Like it'll work out to be "volent" or "exume" or something?
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You get "exhume" and "vomit."
Re:Davros, is that you? (Score:4, Informative)
Here's a clip for an example, for those unfamiliar:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7026801162637347552&ei=eyc4SdWjOoL8rAKQiLiTDg&q=genesis+of+the+daleks+davros [google.com]
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I prefer to imagine the soothing, comforting voice of Morgan Freeman, myself. I think it might be some sort of condition I have.
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Its almost like trying to start a new politcal party called the Mazi party.
Can we have politically incorrect Maziballs then?
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Just don't try to type that on a G1 (Android) phone.
This is why people don't take you seriously. (Score:5, Insightful)
The hyperbole makes you look like a frothing idiot.
Re:This is why people don't take you seriously. (Score:5, Funny)
Serve Documentation from GitTorrent (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Serve Documentation from GitTorrent (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Serve Documentation from GitTorrent (Score:5, Interesting)
Use a GUID instead. There is an RFC http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4122.txt [ietf.org] and its the same algorithm Microsoft uses. It's pretty much guaranteed to be unique if everyone follows the same process. They're used everywhere.
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So, it's not Guaranteed then, now is it?
Re:Serve Documentation from GitTorrent (Score:5, Informative)
This is cool, your code can be free. But unfortunately you're still stuck with hosting the documentation on a central website of some sort.
no - you're not :) read the article [advogato.org]: it mentions that static content such as that generated by ikiwiki could perfectly well be generated by a locally-checked-out (gittorrent-distributed) copy of the documentation
extend that concept a little further (one step at a time!) and you have, as you rightly mention:
a standard for hosting the documentation website. IE PHP + SQlite + GitTorrent docRoot == Distributed website.
yes! although, to be much better, technically, you'd have a distributed SQL server - a peer-to-peer SQL server. there's a project that IngreSQL are keeping an eye on, called "d", that might show some promise, here.
Could even contain Trac or something, so all the bug tracking is also in the GitTorrent repository.
yes!
_now_ you're getting it :)
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thank you!
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What is it that prevents you from putting the documentation into git as well? Does git somehow refuse to store plain English text?
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Yes, thats why there are no comments in the linux kernel
<ducks>
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If I'm understanding things correctly (and there's no guarantee that I am) the "problem" is that a lot of documentation is generated from source code (structured comments in C and Java, pod files in Perl, doc-strings in Python, etc). For example, dOxygen generates the HTML files that you browse, so a signed version of those HTML files isn't available anywhere. The solution is to require anyone wanting authenticated documentation to install the tools needed to generate it from the authenticated source.
Re:Serve Documentation from GitTorrent (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Serve Documentation from GitTorrent (Score:4, Insightful)
Using sqlite would probably not work very well.
For issue tracking, a better example would be ditz [rubyforge.org], which stores issues as plain text. YAML, actually, but close enough. Thus, rather than thinking about this whole separate layer of SQL transactions, you deal with changes to the bug tracker with the same tools you use for managing the code.
For instance, rather than Trac's retarded behavior of refusing to let you modify an issue when someone else already has (and refusing to let you see their changes without opening a new tab), you'd let Git try to merge them, and fix it manually if necessary.
PHP would not be a good idea, either, unless it was very well secured -- you'd probably want static files for your wiki, or a safer templating language (Markdown, etc). In fact, no need to make it a wiki -- again, just keep it flat, and use git as the mechanism for distributing changes.
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I don't get it. How does this really make the development process any more free?
Well, let's see... the repo is no longer in a single place, it's all over the place. One might conclude that removing access to such a repository might become slightly more difficult, with the proliferation of wifi, and the soon-to-be mesh networking. This has awe-inspiring possibilities for world freedom, nevermind simply software freedom.
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It allows for trolling-in-scm-systems, which is currently seriously too hard.
If you ask me.... (Score:4, Funny)
...there's too many gits on the internet *now*...
Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
The primary purpose of peer to peer systems are to either avoid censorship or provide lots of cheap/free bandwidth.
Neither of these really apply to source code management. Hosting is easily sponsored and the files aren't very big anyway. Few projects will face censorship anywhere other than the most regressive regimes (ie, China or the US).
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Think of it as abstracting away servers, sort of like the "cloud computing" concept but from a different angle. At minimum, it gives you automatic load balancing between mirrors.
I'm not sure if this particular implementation is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but there are still a ton of areas where just adding distribution + pgp signatures will make the world a better place.
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I don't see the need, though. Git is small and lightweight. Large-ish projects just work off of Github, which is fast enough. If the central repository goes down, you have other means (mailing list, etc) for getting back in touch -- granted, GitTorrent would do that for you, but it seems a premature optimization when a central repository works most of the time.
Emerging market, Third World and Offline access (Score:2)
You're used to permanent online Internet access.
in cases where internet access is prohibitively expensive or even impossible, it makes perfect sense to have everything in easily-syncable git repositories.
once you have the documentation, the wiki, the code and the bugtracker in repositories, you could even sync those repositories up with the rest of the world through the exchange of floppy disks, CDs or USB memory sticks.
so the article is about "thinking ahead".
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
The primary purpose of peer to peer systems are to either avoid censorship or provide lots of cheap/free bandwidth.
the primary purposes _now_ are to avoid censorship and to provide lots of cheap/free bandwidth.
the last major upgrade of debian REDLINED the world's internet backbone infrastructure for a WEEK.
with the total linux usage only being - what... 1% of the world's desktop systems, and debian being a small fraction of that, the debian mirror system are ALREADY creaking under the load.
Neither of these really apply to source code management.
why not?
Hosting is easily sponsored and the files aren't very big anyway. Few projects will face censorship anywhere other than the most regressive regimes (ie, China or the US).
i don't _want_ "sponsorship". i don't _want_ my pet project hosted by a large corporation. i want it completely independent.
i want my web site content hosted and automatically mirrored across the world, along with its bugs database and its wiki all linked together.
i want people in the emerging markets and the third world to be able to have exactly the same kind of luxury that we do - and they DO NOT have "continuous access to the web site or access to the lovely sponsored hosting".
think much bigger and you will start to see why this is so damn important.
[Citation Needed] (Score:2, Insightful)
Proof or it didn't happen.
Why don't you want your pet project hosted by a large corporation? You really just sound like you're whining about nothing.
I'm pretty sure neither Google Code nor Sourceforge discriminate against the third world.
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But it could easily be the other way around. You could be a third world developer and have a great piece of software to share, say KQuicken for Linux, but you can't reach sourceforge because of your government's firewall.
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Is sourceforge firewalled anywhere?
Also, I didn't know that the backbone was strained by a debian release. Did I miss the /. article, or was that not considered "news for nerds"?
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JFGIgger please [google.com].
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simple answer is to have debian update more often... ;-)
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the last major upgrade of debian REDLINED the world's internet backbone infrastructure for a WEEK.
I very much doubt it was the source which caused that issue, or that a distributed git repository would help. I'm guessing it was downloading DVD images, or individual packages -- assuming that this actually happened; I only have your word for it at the moment.
And the reason it doesn't apply to source code management is, at least technologically, git is damned good -- fast and small enough that it really does not cost very much in the way of hosting. Typically, when I send an update to Github, it's on the o
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"the files aren't very big anyway."
Speak for yourself. Ever work on a game or film project?
Doesn't really apply (Score:2)
I don't see why you'd keep a film project in a SCM, and game art assets can be kept separate from the code anyway. SCMs won't track them very well.
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I don't see why you'd keep a film project in a SCM
For the same reason you keep source in SCM.
SCMs won't track them very well.
Centralized SCM do quite fine, Git on the other side does rather horrible since it forces you to checkout the complete history of the project, not so much a problem with text files, but a huge issue with binary blobs, which don't diff well and thus don't compress. A 'git clone' can easily get 10 times as large as a 'svn checkout' for a project with lots of binary stuff.
Not going to change much (Score:2)
A website and bandwidth has never been a chokepoint, sourceforge and google code has for years provided bandwidth.
This is a problem in search of a solution.
Re:Not going to change much (Score:5, Funny)
This is a problem in search of a solution.
I believe you meant "solution in search of a problem."
Re:Not going to change much (Score:5, Funny)
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hah, yeah I bummed that up..
After looking it a little more it sounds like a good concept and I'd be interested to see how it turns out.
It wouldn't be that useful for projects though since projects rarely fork so there isn't much of a need to have the whole website, forum, etc in git along with it.
bandwidth and a website in the FIRST world (Score:3, Insightful)
across most of europe, america and asia, internet access is near-unlimited.
have you considered the implications of receiving linux on a CD, and being cut off from the rest of the internet?
how would a group of 100 developers, or 1000 developers, or 10,000 developers - all of them "used to" the current levels of internet access and speed, cope in a situation where the access to the internet was restricted to intermittent 56k dialup?
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In such a situation, I still don't see how GitTorrent helps. I can still use Git over a LAN, manually, and that intermittent 56k is still plenty fast for source-level changes to be distributed via Git.
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It might currently come across as a solution looking for a problem - and as one smart-ass with admin rights to the Google Code project reminds you on the source tab, "more alpha than the greek letter". The initial motivation was performance of downloads and in particular reducing load on kernel.org.
Not convinced this is a good idea yet? Oh don't worry it goes on:
That's one reason d'etre, but to those who argue that is insufficient justification for its existence, that Git is already fast enough - it is a first step towards applying decentralizing Peer to Peer concepts to Git.
BTW, an excellent way to convince someone a project really doesn't have a "reason d'etre" is insisting it has multiple "reason d'etre"s.
If you decentralize the download layer, it's just another small step before you decentralize the push rights and tie it to a web of trust such as PGP, and then you don't actually need discrete mirror sites. Every mirror can track the git repositories the owners want it to carry, and those authorized to sign updates can make signed updates to push the cloud forward.
You had me at performance and distributing bandwidth costs, and probably should have stopped there. Changing ownership of a project from those who control "The Web Site" to those "authorized to sign updates" doesn't do much for me.
And srly, "central choke-point of co
It amuses me (Score:5, Interesting)
The hyperventilation notwithstanding, what amuses me most is the fact that the project is currently hosted at Google Code.
Try meditation or something.
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ohmmmmmmmmmmmm
"i am at onnnne with the universe. i am greeeen!"
the project was found by accident: the author of the article and the project's authors are not related, in any way.
think of google code as a bootstrap mechanism: you have to get from here to there _somehow_, and if it wasn't for the old, you'd never get a leg-up into the new....
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think of google code as a bootstrap mechanism: you have to get from here to there _somehow_, and if it wasn't for the old, you'd never get a leg-up into the new....
True enough, but you'd think that you'd start with one of the "old" things which was at least managed with the same SCM your project is for. That is, why wouldn't you use Github for that?
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i think that google might be a bit peeved if the people who were on that particular GSoC-sponsored project decided that they wanted to use github.org, not code.google.com.... :)
notwithstanding: even github would be sidelined by gittorrent - or would have to adapt gittorrent...
if your product is so useful (Score:5, Insightful)
you don't need the hype. linking it to the downfall of vista makes us laugh at you
just describe what it does, dryly, concisely, technically. if it is worthy of the hype, we will supply the hype for you
but when you supply the hype, we are inclined to believe there's not much really going on with your project. which might not be true. so change your tone, for your own sake
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What you did was take a boring description and dumped in two whopping spoonfuls of hype. As if that wasn't enough, you put a spiteful cherry on top of the Slashdot submission.
This was my favorite part:
A government or an organisation decides that it doesn't want free software to be used, as it undermines their ability to exert "control".
Great. Not only do I have to worry about Chemtrails and controlled demolition conveniently disguised as terrorism, now I learn the government might want to keep me from getting my free copy of KOffice.
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whilst many people would be capable of making the same deductions, many people are not.
I think the word you're after here is 'paranoia', not "deductions".
I don't see GitTorrent offering any meaningful advantage. In any managed software project, the "choke point" is the person or person who decides what goes into a given relaese, not anything technical.
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WINE 1.0 is out. Only GNU HURD, a Mac Pro Mini, and Duke Nukem Forever to go !
You forgot Perl 6.
(smirk) (Score:2)
"whilst many people would be capable of making the same deductions, many people are not"
the people who are not making the deductions you are making are the ones who seem to be in better contact with reality
regardless, no one likes someone else making deductions for them, no matter how truthful
its patronizing, it drives people away. it demonstrates a colossal arrogance
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You've supplied plenty of hype, but little substance:
GitTorrent makes Git truly distributed.
Git is already truly distributed. What's more distributed about GitTorrent?
"the web site" no longer becomes the central choke-point of control.
It's not.
For a good example, look at the Linux Kernel itself. Yes, kernel.org exists, but it is not a choke point. There are enough mirrors, and enough branches, that some flavor of the kernel will always be available from somewhere, even if kernel.org goes away for awhile.
Imagine that an entire project - its web site, documentation, wiki, bug-tracker, source code and binaries are all managed and stored in a peer-to-peer distributed git repository.
Alright. What does that buy?
To view the web site, you either go to the main site, http://web-site.org/ [web-site.org] or, if you are offline or want faster access, you go to the locally checked out copy.
If we are talking about documentation, most open source projects already include d
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didn't even register in my head, maybe I read too much Shakespeare?
Same for me, except that it was playing Runescape what did it for me..
You RSers know what I'm talking about. :)
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Dugg down for not including the requisite flame or "OMG, this is so awesome!"
Wait, did you say this was /.? Nevermind.
What exactly have you been smoking? (Score:5, Funny)
Coming just in time for that all-encompassing Free Software revolution hinted at by The Rebellion Against Vista
Can you also point me to where the rainbow-powered unicorn factories are? I imagine they probably exist in the world you seem to live in, you insufferable twit.
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Can you also point me to where the rainbow-powered unicorn factories are?
They used to be here on Slashdot [cnet.com]...
Color me stupid (Score:2)
But a central repository doesn't disappear when seeders disappear, and it is more easily controlled to protect commits. The magic of git is that I can easily have a private branch, and then easily merge it. But is this really a good idea?
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there's nothing to stop an EXISTING site from being the one that publishes their "central" repository via gittorrent. in fact, that's the whole point - initially - of gittorrent: to take the load off the "central" repositories, currently utilising http mirroring.
but thank you - i will make mention of that, explicitly, in the article.
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A group of developers can start a private project without central hosting using git already, today. Look at the man page for "git-bundle". Git commits can already be exchaged via e-mail.
Security implications? (Score:2)
The nice part about a repository hosted on a well-known site is (relative) confidence in the security of the code. If a repo is fully distributed, what's to protect against someone at a node adding malicious code? And, if something malicious is discovered in software you downloaded, how do you track it back to the source node?
Curious,
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Wasn't that answered in the summary?
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Git GPG signing, and KeyNote [ietf.org].
http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~angelos/keynote.html [columbia.edu]
Rebellion you say? (Score:3, Insightful)
I would rather see a rebellion on Slashdot against articles that announced FOSS news as if it was predicting the second coming of Christ.
This story is in no way related the the Microsoft's (perceived) loss in market share, not to mention the fact that those who are dropping windows are moving to Apple, not Linux. But hey, gotta go for every low blow you can get while the news is still fresh, right?
Trademark debacle waiting to happen. (Score:3, Interesting)
BitTorrent Trademark Guidelines: [bittorrent.com] "Misleading or Confusing People. If you are using any of our trademarks in a way that will cause people to get the wrong idea about BitTorrent's involvement in something, you should stop! If you have some reason why you think your proposed use isn't misleading or confusing, let's talk."
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A distributed repository has no political implications that mirroring in general don't have already have.
China. Dubai. internet access is monitored and censored. In Dubai, if a mime-encoded download *happens* to have the letters "sEx" in it, it gets shut off.
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darn. they can't read about sussex, england.
and they can't register at hostels/hotels/conferences where sex has to be specified (this actually happened at my workplace where some admin had set overzealous filters on his own).
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Dang, man! Are you replying to every single comment? That's quite the astroturfing campaign you are running....
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ha ha :)
no, not every single one - just the ones that get the wrong end of the stick in some subtle way that could misdirect readers.
No responsibility (Score:2)
This is an iffy idea for data that actually matters. The "torrent" type systems sort of work because they're willing to accept very poor data integrity in exchange for free music and video. Even that's going downhill, as more content shows up with logos, ads, and other various dreck tacked on.
When it doesn't work, or something gets lost, who do you blame?
Security is supposed to be through "signing". Who's signing what? Does everybody sign their own check-in, do servers sign collections of files, or w
Git already has GPG signing (Score:2)
read the article [advogato.org]: in it, you will see links to the fact that Git already has GPG signing on tags.
also, you will see references to KeyNote [columbia.edu], aka RFC 2704 [ietf.org]. for convenience, i'm cut/pasting the top bit, here:
"Trust management, introduced in the PolicyMaker system [BFL96], is a unified approach to specifying and interpreting security policies, credentials, and relationships; it allows direct authorization of security-critical actions. A trust-management system provides standard, general-purpose mechanisms for s
Point of Web of Trust (Score:3, Informative)
What about persistence? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Persistence happens by mistake when people forget to clean out their gittorrent-backed git repositories.
the nice thing about using gittorrent is that you would end up with copies of the bits of source code and the binaries that YOU were interested in - and, consequently, so would anyone else.
so, if you were a maintainer of a project, you would be interested in hosting a "central" repository, just like is done now, keeping all the revisions of the software, but it would *happen* to also be _distributed_...
in
I want a Choke Point of Control (Score:2, Insightful)
From a technical standpoint, with Git, there's nothing about the central server that is unique. Instead, it's a social convention. Everyone knows where to get the code. Linus discusses this here. http://lwn.net/Articles/246381/ [lwn.net]
Perhaps, my imagination is failing; but, I don't think this will change. Most people want to go to a well known trusted place to at least get
Freak out the RIAA (Score:2)
This is a very legitimate torrent use that will frustrate the RIAA in its attempts to stamp out torrents.
Re: (Score:2)
To a reasonable and informed person, this might constitute a legitimate non-infringing use of P2P.
To the IP Crusaders, this another step on the slippery slope!
"Now this evil infringing peer-to-peer technology is being used to host UNSTOPPABLE repositories of COPYRIGHT-INFRINGEMENT and COPYRIGHT-PROTECTION-CIRCUMVENTION software! The P2P terrorists have gone from Torrent as a WMD to Torrent as a WMD factory!"
I hope /code doesn't get all "all-caps-filter" on me; I'm trying to simulate hysterics.
Dead project (Score:5, Informative)
The last project entries/downloads are from February 2008. Why such a hype over a dead/dormant project?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
because it's the *only* project that links git with a p2p protocol. so, i'm interested in seeing it revived.
Re:Dead project (Score:4, Insightful)
So, how about truthfully saying that in TFA, instead of blathering about the winds of change and the impending revolution?
Vista rebellion? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not a Microsoft fan but this shit about a vista rebellion has nothing to do with bringing two technologies together (that also have their warts).
I'm petty sure the frustrated Vista users won't be benefiting from peer-peer distributed source code anytime soon.
Could this be used for things other than code? (Score:2)
Git is basically just a generic distributed versioning-filesystem layer, right? Source control is its current killer app, but it's got no particular hooks to make it dependent on that domain.
So if we combined Git + Bittorrent... does that give us a generalised peer-to-peer distributed filesystem?
If so, that's a whole lot more interesting than just a way to share source code fast. Imagine a true peer-to-peer Web built on something like this.
Imagine, for instance, posting blog or wiki posts as little paragrap
Big Binaries: I hate them (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that a fair proportion of most of the firms I've worked for do not know how to use SCMS, a lot of the SCMS I've maintained contain rather large binary snapshots. Also, distributed firms. So this might be a useful tool if I could get people to use it. Which is unlikely.
but the politics? In this case, leave it out. Just a distraction.
My solution is very different (Score:3, Funny)
I always check my GIT repository into SVN for safe keeping ;-)
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I'd be ok as long as you have the right keys..
Question is, how do you know which keys are trustworthy...
Debian GPG-signed Web of Trust (Score:4, Informative)
debian has a keysigning process that creates a web of trust.
http://www.chaosreigns.com/code/sig2dot/debian.html [chaosreigns.com]
http://www.debian.org/events/keysigning [debian.org]
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Not at all.
Git is a means of sharing and tracking changes to source code for a software project. Formerly, you needed a central server to do that. Now, with GitTorrent, it can be distributed among individual machines.
GitTorrent is designed to lower the bar for starting a multi-person software project, making it easier and cheaper for developers to collaborate with each other.
As a side effect, since there's no central server, it will be difficult for an authority to take down or block GitTorrent projects.
Re:Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Observe the Ubuntu website this coming April when they release a new version and see if you still feel that a website is appropriate to the task. The site gets hammered so hard that it's problematic to even get the .torrent files directly from them, nevermind the ISOs, and it's not feasible to have that kind of bandwidth sitting around unused except for a few days every 6 months, nor is it currently feasible to get that much bandwidth on-demand for a website, but bittorrent allows for just that, as you're pooling the bandwidth of everyone downloading it. You can easily gets amounts of bandwidth that would cost tens of thousands of dollars to have in a conventional manner.
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it's not feasible to have that kind of bandwidth sitting around unused except for a few days every 6 months, nor is it currently feasible to get that much bandwidth on-demand for a website
Ahem. [amazon.com]
It costs money, yes -- but it's certainly possible.
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Define illegal. Distributing documents that certain organisations (or, say, religions...) don't want to see distributed? Showing video footage that certain governments would love to see vanish (because, say, it shows how they deal with protesters)?
But don't worry, governments will agree with you and make this tool illegal for that very reason. Or national security. Or any other excuse if the price is right.
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I forgot to mention that hosting a repository in Freenet actually does have a couple of advantages over having it sit on your (or somewone else's) web server:
Files in freenet are distributed throughout the network, and persist as long as *someone* on the network still has the file.
If you are writing a program that government X doesn't like (for kicks, let's say you're living in China and you're developing a 'democracy simulator'), you can host the program in Freenet anonymously - Freenet is designed to make
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Re: Good point... (Score:2, Funny)
I could see this being used to distribute harmful source code
...for similar reasons, I suggest we make atoms illegal. It is a widely known fact that atoms can be used to make weapons and bombs. I don't understand why the government isn't doing anything about this. Also, I read somewhere that rapists and murderers are made of atoms.