[mnet-devel] Lazy publisher problem.

[Kyle Hasselbacher]

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Let me start by saying I don't intend to implement this, so if you can't
stand to hear feature ideas from people who won't otherwise contribute,
stop now.  I feel sheepish talking about implementation when I won't have
time to do it.

What I'd like is to make files available to the network without having to
publish them--much like Gnutella.  I just point to a mass of baby pictures,
and as long as I'm connected, someone can get them.  Mnet has the same
"problem" this way that Freenet does: nothing is available until it's
published.  As such, less popular content does not stay on the network
(pushed off by more popular stuff) and so frequently doesn't even make it
to the net (less incentive to publish because it won't stay).

I had an idea for how to do something like this for Freenet.  This email
will be an adaptation of that idea for Mnet.  You can read the "original"
here, if you're interested:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/24/174337/874

The client with a data store to share would "index" it all, getting a list
of filenames, sizes, metadata, hashes, whatever.  People who want it can
request it somehow.  When a client sees a request, it does a normal
publish to the network.

Now, how to get the file information to the people who want to search for
it?  How to get the requests to the clients who need to publish?

We can punt the first question for now.  People can go to something like
Bitzi to get hashes of things they want.  Ultimately we may want to
integrate the sharing client's index information with the content tracker.
Instead of providing a "direct" link to the published information, it would
provide an indirect one that generates a publish request.  I also envision
clients holding the indices of other clients, so the metadata stays after
the sharing client goes, but I don't know how to "decay" that information
properly.

I'd like a publish request to be something that's published.  People who
find the hash for something they want through Bitzi or any other means can
publish a "wanted" flag to the network and walk away.  Given a hash of a
file, I'd like to be able to query the network to see if anyone has
requested that hash.  My client, with 3G of baby pictures, would poll for
each hash in its index to see if anyone has announced a desire for what its
sharing.  Of course, we'd need a way to know if a given hash is on the
network already.

I don't know enough about Mnet to know how feasible any of this is.  I know
it's all rather fuzzy, but I think the goal--lazy sharing--is useful.

Thanks for reading!
- -- 
Kyle Hasselbacher | "It's Not That Simple." -- The ideal bumper sticker
kyle at toehold.com  |                                -- James Trefil
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