Press Release
February 28, 2001
Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies
Sebastopol, CA--The cluster of technologies we're now calling peer-to-
peer is
a melting pot of ideas that's about to boil over. The term "peer-to-peer"
has come to be applied to networks that expect end users to contribute
their own files, computing time, or other resources to some shared
project. Even more interesting than the systems' technical underpinnings
are their socially disruptive potential: in various ways they return
content, choice, and control to ordinary users. "The recent furor over
peer-to-peer file sharing using Napster masks a deeper revolution," said
Tim O'Reilly, president of O'Reilly & Associates "It's not just some little
market segment, but the new shape of the computer industry as a
whole."
Although O'Reilly's latest release,
Peer-to-Peer;
Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies (edited by Andy
Oram, US $29.95) is mostly
about the technical promise of peer-to-peer, it also talks about its
exciting social promise.
Communities have been forming on the Internet for a long time, but they
have been limited by the flat interactive qualities of email and Network
newsgroups. People can exchange recommendations and ideas over these
media, but have great difficulty commenting on each other's postings,
structuring information, performing searches, or creating summaries. If
tools provided ways to organize information intelligently, and if each
person could serve up his or her own data and retrieve others' data, the
possibilities for collaboration would take off. Peer-to-peer technologies
along with metadata could enhance almost any group of people who
share an interest-technical, cultural, political, medical, you name it.
"Seemingly small technological innovations in peer-to-peer can radically
alter the day-to-day use of computer systems, as well as the way
ordinary people interact using computer systems," says the book's editor,
Andy Oram.
Peer-to-Peer:
Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies presents
the goals that drive the developers of the best-known peer-to-peer
systems, the problems they've faced, and the technical solutions they've
found.
Written by leaders of the field of peer-to-peer, including:
Nelson Minar and Marc Hedlund of Popular Power, on a history
of peer-to-peer Clay Shirky of Accelerator Group, on where peer-to-peer is
likely to be headed Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly & Associates, on redefining the
public's perceptions Dan Bricklin, cocreator of Visicalc, on harvesting information
from end-users David Anderson of SETI@home, on how SETI@home created the
world's largest computer Jeremie Miller of Jabber, on the Internet as a collection of
conversations Gene Kan of Gnutella and GoneSilent.com, on lessons from
Gnutella for peer-to-peer technologies Adam Langley of Freenet, on Freenet's present and upcoming
architecture Alan Brown of Red Rover, on a deliberately low-tech content
distribution system Marc Waldman, Lorrie Cranor, and Avi Rubin of AT&T Labs,
on the Publius project and trust in distributed systems Roger Dingledine, Michael J. Freedman, and David Molnar of
Free Haven, on resource allocation and accountability in distributed
systems Rael Dornfest of O'Reilly Network and Dan Brickley of ILRT/RDF
Web, on metadata Theodore Hong of Freenet, on performance Richard Lethin of Reputation Technologies, on how reputation
can be built online Jon Udell of BYTE and Nimisha Asthagiri and Walter Tuvell of
Groove Networks, on security Brandon Wiley of Freenet, on gateways between peer-to-peer
systems
"This book is an important survey of early work and current ideas in
the field. It should
be read by everyone involved in designing the next generation of networked
systems."
--Ross Anderson
"What could be more disruptive than a world of peers who depend on nobody
and influence everybody? If you don't know, this is your book."
--Doc Searls, Coauthor, The Cluetrain Manifesto
"A great book. Peer-to-Peer is the best resource available today
for those interested in understanding the history, details, and implications
of the peer-computing revolution."
--Kevin Werbach, Editor, Release 1.0
Online Resources:
Peer-to-Peer
Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies
Edited by Andy Oram
March 2001
ISBN 0-596-00110-X, 448 pages $29.95 (US)
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
About O'Reilly
O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.
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