> Well, notice that they use two different schemes. Not the same one. It is
> possible to run an nntp server that is not Usenet, which is why nntp exists. 
> It
> is not possible to run a Freenet node that is connected to Freenet.

Sure it is. You can set up a local Freenet not connected to the main
Freenet and it could be a really useful thing to do. I mean, hey, if there
was a 100% perl (no modules!) version of a Freenet node and updatable
data, I'd run a tiny Freenet cluster on all the machines I have access to
in order to keep redundent copies of all of my files. I've been needing a
decentralized, peer-to-peer backup system for ages.

However, we don't need nntp://-style URLs unless we want to let web pages
access people's local, isolated Freenet clusters. If web sites are going
to keep their content in a Freenet cluster and allow access from the web
page, then that is why it would be useful. Let me try to think of a time
when someone would want to do this. You could have several entry points
around the world to the web site's information (like a major FTP mirroring
site, for instance). All of the data would be kept in an isolated Freenet
cluster and would be served from some central machines but then be cached
on the multiple entry points. This would be for fast content mirroring
that got faster if people accessing a specific server favored certain
information (great for a news service). I have this elaborate example
because it's the only time I can think of that using nntp-style URLS would
be useful. But then you could just set up a CGI gateway and it would work
fine. Linking would work fine, too, although it wouldn't be as elegant
looking as free:// or whatever.

This leaves me with only one situation in which it would be useful, which
is when you want to run an isolated Freenet system and _you_ don't want to
make it accesible via a web page, but you want other people to be able to
link via the web to your Freenet cluster. I can't think of a time when
this would be useful or desirable.



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