Ok... I know you are kidding (I hope you are actually) but i'm gona think loud if that's OK.

[think loud]
It may be GPL, and it's open source (obviously). Still, I've always sustained that an ethical license was applied to every source ever released even though it's not written. This ethical license says pretty much that you can use pieces of the source (such as the conection engine or the search engine) but if you want to use the whole code you should let the author know and you should place his name in the 'about'. Now, this is just for being polite to the creator and because in encourages people to share things (If i know my name is going to appear anyway I would share more sources). Now, I'm not a lawyer, nor i am a skilled programmer, but I know what means to develop a software and I know that many people aren't willing to share their work because it took them so long to create it. I think that's crap and that's Windows freaking philosophy.

Now, I've read the GPL and I think there is no legal restriction for using or modifying the source as long as we say it's their source and not of our own. However Kazaa isn't released under GPL and that would make it even more hard to connect to their network.

Perhaps lackluster is right... and it's pointless to try and connect to kazaa when mos linux users use giFT for file Sharing... All we need is a viable windows client adn giFT network could grow even bigger than napster was in it's golden... months.

I think that win32 would be something usefull for us... since we are willing to create a win32 software. I think and I state that this is the time of stop talking and start acting.

[/thinking loud]

now... I'm recruiting programmers now. I'm registering free domains (www.portland.co.uk it's kind of cool place for websites) with a www.cjb.net subdomain redirection... I'll post them here ASAP.

Also a skilled webmaster would be very usefull (webmaster == web designer + web programmer)

I think that the win32 client as well as Linux client should be fully programmed in C++ since we will be managing objects after all... I'm not a C/C++ programmer so I don't know much about what language is better.

My e-mail (as I said earlyer in this thread) is 333101@personal.net.py

I'm willing to get your mails. please add something in the subject regarding this forum because I get too many mails and I usually delete them withou reading (unless the subject seems important or is from a known person)


Penguin, you'll rule the world not long from now! and we'll be the power behind the throne! mbwahahahah

giFT is seperated in two parts, one daemon which handles the whole protocol and all the physical file sharing. And a GUI which simply connects to the daemon and displays the status and sends new requests.

Both the daemon and several versions of the GUI are available for windows. I suggest you have a look at giFT and try it out. If giFT wants to become popular all it would need is marketing tactics and maybe a better very userfriendly GUI for the windows users. And the fact that someone has to get it from CVS and compile it themselves isn't very attractive to the average windows user.

Well then ... the birth of another file-sharing client . If nobody else steps up to the plate, I suppose I'll do the windows coding ... if that's cool. As for compiling from CVS, what's to stop us from compiling a binary and releasing it with the file-sharing client? BTW, is the windows daemon implemented as a windows program without any windows or is it more like a TSR? It's probably in giFT's documentation, I was just curious because windows doesn't really have daemons like linux .... sometimes they're called "services"

But is giFT's network as large as fasttracks? I mean can I download as much as with kazaa. I think people are first of all atracketed to networks that have the most to offer. Beating kazaa by having more stuff to dowload is going to be hard.
So my point is, you can make a super friendly,stable, ect app, but if you can't do shit with it, no body will want it.
Now I really sugest cracking FT protocall. I have searched the web and giFT uses somthing called openFT. As the name sugests, it open and we can probebly learn alot from it.
Any thoughts, comments?

"I suppose I'll do the windows coding ... if that's cool"

trust me, it's not. I have done it and the documentation is poor.

it is not! if you have the propper tools like Visual Studio 6.0(+) with MSDN librabies you have all the doc you'll need.

In fasttrack's homepage, in the download section, there are a few dll's and ocx... perhaps studying them could give us some idea about how it works... Can anyone do that?

Thanz

I have all the microsoft software ... even the .NET bs. Documentation is actually quite clear and easy to follow on msdn.microsoft.com.

>>So my point is, you can make a super friendly,stable, ect app, but if you can't do shit with it, no body will want it.
Now I really sugest cracking FT protocall. I have searched the web and giFT uses somthing called openFT. As the name sugests, it open and we can probebly learn alot from it.
Any thoughts, comments?

Learn alot about what? openFT? I hope you don't mean FastTrack. On giFT's FAQ they're talking about they split off because FastTrack did some encryption dealy. Now they're two sepearte entitiys. So what is openFT going to teach anyone about FastTrack?

Agreed that without marketing and alot of crap to download nobody will use the app, but I think it's a more realistic and legally safer route than trying to crack the FastTrack code. Besides, what if you crack the code and they re-write it? Are you going to re-crack the code? What if they change again?

>>Agreed that without marketing and alot of crap to download nobody will use the app, but I think it's a more realistic and legally safer route than trying to crack the FastTrack code. Besides, what if you crack the code and they re-write it? Are you going to re-crack the code? What if they change again?


I agree, that is not an option... we could use giFT instead of KAZAA and try to make it grow. Anyway... perhaps it's not illegal to crack the protocol... think... samba did the same to MICROSOFT!!! I think we will have grounds to avoid any legal matter. Perhaps a lawyer could help us... but since there is no international regulation it's up to each country. Andd I think that kazaa isn't that powerfull. Now... we could try to reverse engineer the fasttrack... if they change the encription they should release a whole new software or a patch... anyway, the old protocol should still work untill they are certain that everyone has changed to the new version... and that would give us time to crack it again. Kind of a cold war :P

Now... I'm going to watch some tv awaiting for your ideas.

Have a good time writing... you should practice your typing... it makes linux usage a lot easyer...

"I have all the microsoft software ... even the .NET bs. Documentation is actually quite clear and easy to follow on msdn.microsoft.com."
Oh, they must of improved it. Or I was being stupid again. I had some bad experiances.

"So what is openFT going to teach anyone about FastTrack?"
I was hoping that FastTracks protocall haden't changed that much. That all that did was add some encription instaid of chaging the protocall its self.

"Besides, what if you crack the code and they re-write it? Are you going to re-crack the code? What if they change again?"
Ciccio made a good point in saying that they can't just change the protocall. It would also effect there own network.

But what ever you guy's decide, it's going to be a fun project to work on. So if I can be of assistance, count me in. I can program a bit in c++ and I have some experiance working with ms visual studio. (I have ms visual c++ 6.0)
I put a bit of my work on the net. It's at chatoor.vvtp.tudelft.nl . But is't poorly written but i'm improving it. It kind of an calculator but i'm hoping to develop it in to a computer algebra system.

>>But what ever you guy's decide, it's going to be a fun project to work on.

I concur.

Maybe it would be best to develop a client based on giFT while simultaneously trying to crack FastTrack. At least that way, if one fails, the other one can live on .... but I'll help out on this in any way possible, whatever the decsision may be.

"I concur"
Sorry, my englisch is not as good as you guy's. What does that mean? Something like I agree?

>>Maybe it would be best to develop a client based on giFT while simultaneously trying to crack FastTrack. At least that way, if one fails, the other one can live on .... but I'll help out on this in any way possible, whatever the decsision may be.

Agree. and if we succeed to crack fasttrack we can add the protocol to the giFT client and have acess to both networks (then we can make giFT grow faster.

I'm sure It'll be a fun project... In fact I'm eager to do it just for the experience... if some good software comes out, better!!!

Seriously, typing.

It's a posh word for "agree".

Oh, ... . What's a nother word I can add to my vocabulary.

Yes, it seems like a good plan. Count me in.

Here's an uplifting link : http://www.limewire.org/ They're open source which means that we can right off the bat connect to the gnutella network (don't know if giFT already does this).

"posh" is another word you can add to your vocab, schatoor. I just added it to mine