BitTorrentVsKonspire
e 2b takes a fairly different approach to file distribution whereby rather than requesting a specific file you instead subscribe to a channel with a certain theme. You don't know exactly what you will recieve but it will be related to the theme. In this respect Konspire is aiming to achieve something different from merely transfering files.
From a data transfer point of view Konspire is not too disimilar from most peer2peer networks in that once you have a piece of content you then contribute it to other peers. Since all peers have subscribed to the channel already peer discovery is relatively straightforward and authentication is possible just like with bittorrent.
The most noticable differences between the two are that Konspire only allows complete files to be transfered and Konspire clients are encouraged to stay connected all the time (since they are subscribed to a chennl of never ending content). Furthermore Konspire doesn't solve the problem of leaching peers which is BitTorrent's main strength. BitTorrent does this by uploading more to the clients that it is downloading from. Since Konspire only transfers complete files there is no mechanism to persuade clients to contibute back to the network.
There is a somewhat flawed analysis of BitTorrent Vs Konspire at [1]. This analysis assumes that a bittorrent user will disconnect straight away after completing a download, it also ignores the fact that a seed would prefer to upload to a number of clients rather than send the entire file to one client and it fails to mention the problem of leeching altogether. Somewhat ironically Konspire 2b would really benefit from BitTorrent's transfer mechanisms and would be able to conecntrate on its content-channels which is its unique selling point!
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Last edit: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:44:02 -0700 (WikiWord) Revisions: 12