[Mono-devel-list] Idea: Bittorrent and Mono.

[Miguel de Icaza]

Hello,

> Perhaps the developer's list is not the place for this conversation,
> and I apologize if this is the case [one of the topics for this list
> is "discussions about future directions"], but this is probably one
> place full of strong opinions on the true goals of Mono beyond just
> this amazing .NET implementation.  Do people share a common interest
> in using Mono to create the next generation of Linux applications?

Well, I am biased, but I believe strongly in creating desktop
applications in Linux using Mono.

What I see as advantageous in having a C# implementation of Bittorrent
(the client, and an embeddable server) is that it opens the door for
new ideas and innovation.

Today bittorrent is used mostly as a command line tool to download
software, and what I would like to see is Bittorrent just as a standard
protocol of existing applications.

Sure, you can fetch files by using:

	system ("wget http://www.download.com/file.zip")

But there are plenty of reasons why people want to have an http library
in their applications:

	* Control: pause, resume, suspend.

	* Progress report.

	* Efficiency.

	* Removal of runtime dependencies

	* Robustness.

In fact, we should effectively just use Bittorrent for bulk transfers
everywhere.  If this was part of your class libraries, you could have
your browser just bittorrent download anything that ends in .torrent,
without requiring any special setup.

Miguel