Celestia DVD release would be handy!

[Christophe]

Bittorrents can share a nearly unlimited number of files as well. There is no 10 file limit as Christophe says. One may not be able to reasonably share 10 torrents at once, but once can share 1 torrent with many, many files in it. We'd just need 1 giant torrent that had everything in it, and a second torrent for incremental updates.

Yes you can create a torrent with many files in it, but you have no way to download ony one file from it, who would ever download a 10 GB torrent?

[Christophe]

Bittorrent is definitely NOT the solution... The torrents die too quickly. It's a nice way for blockbusters, that's all.

Actually, I run myself a huge amount of addons for emule, and even if at this time not enough people share the bigs textures (let's say... virtuals one ?), a lot of little textures and addons (under 20 Mb) are correctly shared.

I'm convinced that emule is THE p2p system needed for celestia. Now, I have to convince the celestia community 8O

One thing I don't like about eMule and its like, is that it's geared toward 'illegal sharing of copyrighted content' and pornography, that's really something I wouldn't want Celestia to be associated with.

Of course bittorrent is used for that kind of thing too but since there is no bittorrent network and no way to search for content you don't have to see it, and it's totally safe for kids to use.

Plus eMule is Windows only, they are apparently some third party clients for Linux and OSX but I don't know what they are worth.

[Psykotik]

Christophe, since internet exists, every new means of communication (newsgroup, ftp, http, and so on) have been used to share pornography, warez. Eventually, will you stop ftp'ing because of the illegal use of a lot of people ? Remember, warez scene began on the ftp...

Since you speak french, check this site : http://www.ratiatum.com. A lot of sharewares and freewares are legally shared.

Don't blend the mean and the use. By the way, I think we could have a talk about the "illegal way", but that's not the point here.

For linux, you can use two clients : xmule and amule. I don't know anything about it, since I'm not a penguin user, but it seems the community is very active.

About Bittorrent : I don't know what's your level of knowledge or experience for this client. But I've never seen a medium sized file, say, less than 200 MB, lasting more than a week or two.

Keep in mind that the protocol is written for fast transfert for big files, that's the point of the program. You can't neither see how is shared your file. The protocol is written for popular files. In my opinion, it doesn't feet the Celestia's files requirements, which need to share as well little than big files, popular and less popular files.

For sure, the image of Bittorent is different than the emule one; but is the mass medias to choose for us what's the best ? Personally, I don't care what media workers (sorry, they aren't journalists) think about what I do...

[Christophe]

Christophe, since internet exists, every new means of communication (newsgroup, ftp, http, and so on) have been used to share pornography, warez. Eventually, will you stop ftp'ing because of the illegal use of a lot of people ? Remember, warez scene began on the ftp...

Since you speak french, check this site : http://www.ratiatum.com. A lot of sharewares and freewares are legally shared.

Don't blend the mean and the use. By the way, I think we could have a talk about the "illegal way", but that's not the point here.

Thanks for the link. My problem with e-mule is not so much the image of it as what you find on it. Running almost any search will return a fair share of illegal and adult material, I just wouldn't want any kid to use it.

For linux, you can use two clients : xmule and amule. I don't know anything about it, since I'm not a penguin user, but it seems the community is very active.

About Bittorrent : I don't know what's your level of knowledge or experience for this client. But I've never seen a medium sized file, say, less than 200 MB, lasting more than a week or two.

Yes, I know but my idea is to let the server be a seeder for every file. I think eMule would actualy suffer the same problem for this particular use. How many Celestia users are likely to keep eMule running at all time? Most people will simply use it to get the file they want and then close it, in the end you'll get something very similar to using Bittorrent, the less popular files being available from only one source : the server.

Keep in mind that the protocol is written for fast transfert for big files, that's the point of the program. You can't neither see how is shared your file. The protocol is written for popular files. In my opinion, it doesn't feet the Celestia's files requirements, which need to share as well little than big files, popular and less popular files.

For sure, the image of Bittorent is different than the emule one; but is the mass medias to choose for us what's the best ? Personally, I don't care what media workers (sorry, they aren't journalists) think about what I do...

I don't care for the media either, I care for the users.

I agree that Bittorrent is probably not the ideal solution either and as I said previously I don't think using it in this way is doable at the moment, so eMule like networks might be our only solution.

[Psykotik]

My problem with e-mule is not so much the image of it as what you find on it. Running almost any search will return a fair share of illegal and adult material, I just wouldn't want any kid to use it.

I don't have any child, I can't be very unbiased to this kind of problem. For now, I think it's the parent responsability, but I must concede the day I'll have any, I will certainly change my mind

But say, isn't web more unsafe for this kind of material ?

Yes, I know but my idea is to let the server be a seeder for every file. I think eMule would actualy suffer the same problem for this particular use. How many Celestia users are likely to keep eMule running at all time? Most people will simply use it to get the file they want and then close it, in the end you'll get something very similar to using Bittorrent, the less popular files being available from only one source : the server.

and

I agree that Bittorrent is probably not the ideal solution either and as I said previously I don't think using it in this way is doable at the moment, so eMule like networks might be our only solution.

Since the beginning of my emule attempt (more or less one month), I have uploaded more than 1 GB of files. It's few, knowing I'm running emule at all time. Moreover, it seems for now the spreading is not very well made, since people don't keep enough time the files.

But it's just the beginning : I think we have more chance to succeed with emule thant bittorent, so I keep the work. I'm trying to condition the ground for a rational way to share the files. I've read too much times celestia's addons makers writting they don't have any website or they don't have enough size in their website to make a downloadable link.

The last but not the least... the sharing with emule is the easiest way to exchange. Every newbie can use emule, no specific knowledge is needed. In my opinion, it's the strongest argument.

I'm browsing the universe for almost 2 years now, it has became a passion. And when you're passionate, you want the greatest number of people involved into your passion (On the other hand, that's the only way I found to contribute to this program.)

[Christophe]

I don't have any child, I can't be very unbiased to this kind of problem. For now, I think it's the parent responsability, but I must concede the day I'll have any, I will certainly change my mind ;-)

But say, isn't web more unsafe for this kind of material ?

I don't have any kid either, but I think having to use eMule could put off people who do.

Reponsible parents use filtering software for the Web, the problem is that there is no such feature for P2P networks (or is there?).

And you must also consider that many people would like to use Celestia for educational activities, possibly in the class room. Of course you can use Celestia without having to download add-ons but it's the next logical step for anybody interested, and even more so if an add-on manager gets integrated into Celestia.

Since the beginning of my emule attempt (more or less one month), I have uploaded more than 1 GB of files. It's few, knowing I'm running emule at all time. Moreover, it seems for now the spreading is not very well made, since people don't keep enough time the files.

Yes, just what I thought, but even sharing all the files from say 4 or 5 servers would be way better than having to download them from a single HTTP server.

You'd still need to find a way to synchronize the repositories between the servers. The way I see it the add-on creator still uploads his add-on to a main repository from which it is replicated to second-tier servers (with rsync for example) and all of those servers share the full repository by P2P.

I'm browsing the universe for almost 2 years now, it has became a passion. And when you're passionate, you want the greatest number of people involved into your passion :oops: (On the other hand, that's the only way I found to contribute to this program.)

That's certainly a part where users have high expectations and all contributions are always welcome.

[Gordon]

hello everybody,

Here's a previous incarnation of the addon database: http://arnaud.macron.free.fr/recherche.php

Might be helpful for the new version, I don't know... Most of my addons are listed, but I only added 2 or 3 myself, not sure how the others got there...!

Anyway, it only has a few user sites listed, I don't really think it ever got that big...

You are right Jack. Most of the add-ons which are listed have been added by myself. At the beginning that was not the purpose of the site but as almost nobody seemed to be interested in putting there add-ons references there and as the the site existed I decided to fill in some entries rather than let the site empty ! (precision the site is not a repositery but an adress book)

That could be taken as the negative side of it.

The positive side : there has been 16000+ queries made on the database. And that means there is a real necessity for a tool that alllows people to find easally where add-ons are. Anyway I am convinced that the place for a such tool is on Celestia website (as a repositery or not).


--
Gordon (who just baught a ati9600 and now can see suturn rings )

[Redfish]

Okay, say sharing it online is a solution to the problem. I Don't care about sharing a 10 GB image or so over bittorrent or whatever network (as long as not Kazaa i guess. I'm online about half of the week, so if we manage to get enough ppl.

Still we need to get everything together and keep it updated, how will we take care of this? Could someone put up a site for all creators to post their links? Or can we use the french database? Is it near complete?
Also if you only need a small update of a texture it's useless to download the 10 GB again, so we'll have to make some sort of base version and then all the add ons separately with some easy install and uninstall.

[Psykotik]

Christophe, I don't know how is seen p2p in France (well, I have some idea), but in Switzerland is used by universities. Very handy tool to share the files. I understand your fear, but to change how is seen the p2p, we have to show his usefulness. I agree with you, it will be better to have some big server which could stay online in the long run, but at this time we haven't.

Gordon made the database. With a few modifications, I think he could add a field for the emule link. Gordon, I think it's not a lot of work If you need beta tester, I'm at your service. I have some sql knowledge, too. The only way it could work is, as you say, having some kind of centralization.

The next step is only celestia code... and the addons makers behavior. If Celestia itself contains a link to post the addon, I'm pretty sure they will use it.

Well, if I could help anyone...