BitTorrentAsProtocol
ent current is an application to download some files. If it were extended as a protocol to download a resource, and that resource could be referenced as a URI, the possibilities are endless.
For example, I would like to refer to a large resource as x-bittorrent://host/file. What lives at this resource is not a .torrent file -- all that is abstracted away. What might live at that resource is a large binary file like an RPM. The content-type would indicate the file is an RPM, not a bittorrent file.
wget x-bittorrent://host/file gets the file at that URI. Again, this is not a .torrent file, this is the file bittorrent eventually delivers using http, a .torrent file and all the goop involved in bittorrent.
Now, apt-get could be configured to get packages for linux distros this way, whithout the user having to bother with anything. As long as apt-get can get a URI, it is set.
http://pdtp.org/ does this. Bittorrent is a good prototype, but not good enough to write an RFC for an swarming FTP equivelent around.
Part of [[]]
Last edit: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:44:31 -0700 (WikiWord) Revisions: 16