> I believe p2p goes well beyond the mere sharing of data, whether it is free or not. p2p, in my thinking, has more to do with centralized control vs. distributed control.
this holds true for grid computing as well, which is why in the long run, grid computing and p2p should converge. > I would also say that p2p is more about loosely coupled systems with a more or less flexible interface than the more rigidly designed client-server (and database centric) applications. moreover, you could say client-server is in fact a functional subset of p2p. In a p2p system, it is always possible to promote individual nodes so that they effectively become "servers". > I will go on record as saying 'the freedom of information' is a religious issue. You can debate it all day but the bottom line is you can no more prove information wants to be free than you can prove the existence of God. yes, but this "religious" issue will become a very real issue if it becomes illegal to write p2p applications in any form, because they *might* be used for sharing non-free content. that's another reason why p2p and grid technology should become aligned. it's one thing for the media companies to shut down tiny file-sharing sites using p2p, but it will be much harder to attack the federal government labs and large corporations that are using grid computing. _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list [email protected] http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers
