Could we get the FreeBSD torrent servers back?

[Jeffrey Goldberg]

On Feb 25, 2007, at 6:50 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> What your talking about only works if you have a large group of  
> FreeBSD volunteers that are willing to run the torrent servers.   
> Let's assume that only 0.01% of any population group would step up  
> to the plate to offer a torrent server.  Well I can see a Linux  
> torrent network working because Linux has an order of magnitude  
> greater number of users than FreeBSD.  But I think you would find  
> it impossible to recruit something like 1000 FreeBSD users to step  
> up to the plate and offer a torrent server.  The population numbers  
> just aren't there.

I've never used a file sharing system, so my understanding of things  
is limited, but that won't stop me from voicing opinions.

As far as I understand how these things work, if you join a file  
sharing network for download, you are 95% of the way to setting  
yourself up as a "server".  Remember, it isn't so much as a client/ 
server set-up as a peer-to-peer setup.  There may be plenty of BSD  
users who already use torrents for other things, and so could easily  
add sharing of the ISOs.  So the participation rate might be  
substantially larger than 0.01%.

> Worse, the initial people that offer the server are going to get  
> the brunt of the load and you can't give them any guarentee that  
> your going to be able to recruit future torrent servers to lessen  
> the work on them.

The way this sort of problem is generally solved is to have people  
make commitments of the form

   I will do X if at least N other people commit to doing X.

Someone has to keep track of those commitments (I'm *not*  
volunteering) but there is this group participation protocol that has  
been used by various volunteer organizations with some success.

-j


-- 
Jeffrey Goldberg                        http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/