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 Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2024 10:15 pm Post subject: Jeroen Asselman of GTK-gnutella |
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November 23 2024
Jeroen Asselman of GTK-gnutella
/*GTK-gnutella is a peer-to-peer program. It is written under the GPL and runs on the gnutella network.*/
USALUG: Please state your name, and your connection to the Open Source community.
Jeroen Asselman: Jeroen Asselman, currently the maintainer for GTK-Gnutella. Allthough I also provided patches for other projects, like xine and lpp (LinuxProgress patch)
USALUG: What makes gtk-gnutella special from the other p2p clients?
Jeroen Asselman: Because it uses the gnutella network for one. However, it is ideal to have it run 24/7. It supports a lot of the features that are currently available on the gnutella network. It supports network compression to limit your bandwith usage. Advanced bandwith throtling. PARQ is fully supported, which allows a user to regain its position for an upload slot even though the user hasn't connected for a few days. There aren't that many clients out there which support this, if any.And now that we have 0.93 released PFSP (Partial File Sharing) is also fully supported. So distributing fragments over the network will gofaster, which should give a better download experience for everyone. Also gtk-gnutella does a fairly good job on protecting itself against bad behaving clients. If I have compared gtk-gnutella against various other programs and gtk-gnutella does it job very well. However the higher the uptime of gtk-gnutella, the better the experience.
USALUG: What sort of protections are there currently in gtk-gnutella to protect the users privacy?
Jeroen Asselman: Not that many actually, the gnutella network isn't there yet. Just like most p2p programs a connection between computers is needed, as soon as that connection is there you are traceable. However, gtk-gnutella doesnot support browsing of user files. So someone will never be able to get a complete list of all files that are shared by a user. When host browsing will be intergrated into gtk-gnutella you will never be forced to enable it.Also we support a hostiles list of IP addresses, which we try to sync with bearshare before every release. This list contains IP addresses which cannot be trusted. A client with this IP will not be able to connect to gtk-gnutella.
USALUG: What if any measures are you taking to ensure greater privacy for the user?
Jeroen Asselman: In the feature we might introduce more privacy options. However, this is something which have to be agreed on with other gnutella clients too. Currently there isn't a lot which can be done. Apart from getting sproxies to work again in gtk-gnutella. However, my goal is not to make gtk-gnutella the ideal warez program. Far from that, I'd rather would like to see it to be used in a lot more legal manner, for example it would be nice if the gtk-gnutella snapshots could be distributed over the gnutella network.Currently bittorrent is used for example by Mandrake. The gnutella network could be used for the same purpose, but I guess magnet links need to be intergrated into gtk-gnutella first.
USALUG: What right do you feel users have to share files (music, movies, programs) most of which are copyrighted in the manner we do?
Jeroen Asselman: What right do you feel users have to steal? However, I think that is to easy to say. I guess people who are now downloading this stuff wouldn't have bought that music, movie or program anyway. If you use it as some kind of a trial version, I have no problem with that. I don't care about the people who share the files. I find it more troublesome that people who are actually using software because they need it don't want to payfor it.
USALUG: How do you feel about the actions that the RIAA have taken to stop the transfering of copyrighted music?
Jeroen Asselman: I don't think those action will have really success. It just makes developers of p2p programs more aware that anonymity might actually be needed. Than they will start implementing that, which would make everyone untraceable, unfortunately also the users who _should_ betraced.
USALUG: Do you think that peer to peer programs are going to remain legal?
Jeroen Asselman: Yes, I think it is the feature for all file transfers. Hosting still isn't cheap. If you can reduce your network load by making use of P2P why wouldn't you use it?
USALUG: Lastly, if peer to peer programs are infact outlawed, or restricted, would you continue to work on and release gtk-gnutella?
Jeroen Asselman: I doubt it will actually ever be made illegal in Europe. However, I would probably continue to work on it.
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