[sldev] P2P Web Textures now in demand to enable lossless image downloads to viewer

[Simon Nolan]

On Jul 9, 2007, at 10:38A, Tateru Nino wrote:

> sldev at catznip.com wrote:
>> I thought of a few problem points right when I read the proposal,  
>> but no one
>> else seemed to raise them thus far so here goes:
>>
>> * it doesn't take into account that not everyone has unmetered data
>> transfer. If it's enabled by default, those people are going to  
>> unknowingly
>> waste a rather limited resource that has the potential to either  
>> get them in
>> trouble with their ISP, or to receive a higher ISP bill due to  
>> increased
>> transfer.
>> There's no way to detect this, and you can't reasonably expect  
>> everyone to
>> know or even understand, so the default for any peer should be  
>> that it
>> *won't* participate in uploads.
>>
> I'm on metered bandwidth - that said, there's another SLer in the  
> house
> whose cache it would be nice to share, which is why I originally
> proposed an ICP-style optional cache interconnect system.

>> * there's no reliable way to determine available upstream  
>> bandwidth, nor is
>> it really a constant depending on what other applications someone has
>> running while they're on SL; if the P2P saturates the upstream,  
>> their SL
>> experience is going to degrade immensely. No matter how small a  
>> number get
>> picked by default, the bandwidth isn't guaranteed to be available.
>>
> My outbound bandwith is 4% of my inbound bandwidth. I've got 10Mbps
> coming in, but a little under 512Kbps going out, and yes, filling that
> up degrades things _severely_.

I made a similar observation in the first thread Dzonatas created.  
The only thing I can think of is an upload bandwidth slider in  
preferences. Some other P2P systems let the user set uploads per peer  
and an overall bandwidth. I'm not crazy about stuffing Yet Another  
Control(TM) in Preferences, though.

>> * there's no guarantee that downloading from peers is going to be  
>> any faster
>> than downloading through the sim (someone suggested that  
>> downloading should
>> go entirely through peers). Given that the average peer will be  
>> most likely
>> be a low-bandwidth (for upstream) connection, chances are it will  
>> be slower,
>> especially if the route from peer to peer is congested or suddenly
>> unavailable and it has to time-out
>>
> Although it _would_ reduce the time/memory consumption on simulators,
> even if it's no faster.

Just in my limited understanding, it seems like the only time it  
could be faster is if there were a lot of peers sharing. That's what  
I was thinking in my post in the other thread about using the list of  
avatars in the sim as your peer list. It seems like, bandwidth aside,  
that would be a pretty straightforward way to do it, and at the same  
time maybe help resolve one lag issue in busy sims. If you're the  
only avatar in a sim, then you get your textures from the asset  
server as usual -- and that's when you don't need P2P nearly as bad.

>> * are there any legal issues? What happens if a texture is being  
>> infringed
>> upon and someone overzealous decides to subpoena everyone who is
>> distributing the texture, or worse, if the textures are highly  
>> illegal
>> pictures. The liability doesn't just have to be remote or  
>> theoretical, it
>> has to be non-existent since no one but LL can claim a common  
>> carrier status
>>
> Whew. This has happened before - I believe the case is still in court
> after nearly 8 years.

Oh my! That could be very sticky, especially if my client peers with  
someone in a country where certain content is illegal, but isn't here.

>> * clueless on this one, but what happens to the low, medium and  
>> full detail
>> texture "streaming" we currently have? Torrents download pieces  
>> randomly as
>> far as I know.
>>
> It doesn't have to be torrent style, it can be straight HTTP or  
> packeted
> llsd or any other arbitrary entity encapsulation.

I'm thinking torrent-style is seeming less and less like the best way  
to share textures.

>> I don't mean to be critical, but it doesn't seem like any of the  
>> above is
>> taken into consideration and it's being debated without there  
>> being any
>> actual need or practical purpose.
>>
>> Kitty
>>
>
> -- 
> Tateru Nino
> http://dwellonit.blogspot.com/
>

Simon