From: Dick Davies <rasputnik@...>
Date: 2005-02-17T18:32:55+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby + end user applications

* Charles Miller <cmiller@pastiche.org> [0255 07:55]:
> On 17/02/2005, at 11:44 AM, Shalev NessAiver wrote:
> >Instead of having every message sent to every person, create a 
> >specific "mailing list client"
> >that is able to access a "mailing list server". Users of that client 
> >would be able to browse a list
> >of messages on the server, and select messages they wish to read (as 
> >in a normal email client).
> >The difference is, only messages which they select are downloaded and 
> >displayed to the user.
> >Additionally, the messages are (optionally) not stored on the users 
> >computer and continue to
> >remain on the mailing list server.  A single file keeps track of which 
> >files have already been viewed
> >by the user.  In this way only the messages that a user specifically 
> >requests are sent to that user.
> 
> The problem with this is that it relies too heavily on a single central 
> server. If that server went down, nobody would be able to even read any 
> of the existing messages, let alone send any new ones.
> 
> The obvious next step would be to have a network of cooperating 
> servers. When a message was posted on one server, it would be 
> automatically propagated through to the rest of the network. Thus, you 
> wouldn't have to transmit every message to every user, but you would 
> still get some geographical/network distribution and fault tolerance.

If anybody actually wants to do this, there is a similar mechanism on the 
Entropy network (and Freenet).

You publish data (webpages or messages), and they are stored keyed under a hash of
their contents.  The server/clients (there's no difference, so I'll call them mediums)
exchange the chunks they have in the background.

When you want some data, you ask your local medium for the data for key
'a83437,8479fffde' or whatever and out it pops.

It's a bit slow at present, but that's because of all the crypto involved -
something similar could be done with the DHT library someone posted about the
other week.

-- 
'Tempers are wearing thin. Let's hope some robot doesn't kill everybody.'
		-- Bender
Rasputin :: Jack of All Trades - Master of Nuns