Updated May 12, 2001... scroll down.

If you're an active share hose, please add this file to your shared directory.  Thanks.

3 March 2001

Gnutella update: The network is dying, again...Average hosts on the network have risen to 12K, but the
number of users accepting connections has fallen to less than 3,000. And only a small percent of those 
are actually sharing files. Search results are getting very spotty and it is increasingly difficult to download
anything.

6 March 2001

It's getting worse. We're down to less than 2,000 hosts accepting connections.  I have unshared most of my files
until I see some more cooperation from the Freeloaders. 

http://www.limewire.com/hostcount.htm#today

If you are reading this and are not sharing files, please start. Otherwise YOU will be personally
responsible for destroying the Gnutella Community.

May 12, 2001

Additional update:  number of hosts is rising, but still only a third of hosts actually share any files back.  Those who ARE sharing are accepting a pretty limited number of connections because there are still way too damn many leeches out there.

ARE YOU A LEECH?

Do you commonly highlight dozens of files on the same host and 
try grabbing them all, even though you get atrocious download rates?

Do you commonly have files downloading of typical MP3 size (4 to 6 meg) 
that habitually report they'll take more than TWO HOURS to finish?

Do you "hammer" sites that report back as busy (i.e,, rapid retries
that go on for hours?

..and most importantly, do you do these things WITHOUT SHARING 
A SINGLE FILE BACK TO THE NETWORK??

Then you, my friend, are a LEECH and are part of the problem, not
part of the solution!

If you can't or won't do some or all of the following:

1.  Get better bandwidth
2.  Cut back your demands (fewer and smaller files, less often)
3.  Stop hammering
4.  Start sharing

...then I suggest you get your buns off this COOPERATIVE network and
let the rest of us work.



If you a new user, please read the following:

Unlike Napster, you MUST SHARE THE FILES YOU DOWNLOAD less the network decays and dies.  Read on...

============== Do you share files?  If so, GOOD JOB!


"A recent study by Eytan Adar and Bernardo Huberman of Xerox PARC examined the
traffic on Gnutella and discovered that there were an awful lot of "free
riders," users who were happy to download files but weren't willing to share
their own. In fact, 70 percent of all Gnutella users don't share files, and of
the 30 percent who do, the top 1 percent share 40 percent of all files. During a
24-hour period, Adar and Huberman observed 31,395 hosts -- but of that group,
314 hosts were serving the majority of the files.

"It's the tragedy of the commons, writ for the digital age: Shared resources are
being gobbled by users who get more than they give.

"There's very little reward for you sharing your files, and there's a cost,"
explains Adar. "You're anonymous so you can't get credited for doing what you're
doing -- no one says 'good job' for doing this. And it's a cost, because [due to
bandwidth limitations] even if you're on a DSL connection you can't do other
things that you want to do. People realize that they come out on the negative
side and don't want to share files."

The most obvious drawback of free riding is that if only a tiny percentage of
users are sharing, it will be harder to find the files you want...But free
riding is more problematic than Kan will admit. Free riding also means that
Gnutella won't scale:

EACH SEARCH QUERY PLUGGED INTO GNUTELLA HAS A CERTAIN "TIME TO LIVE," AND WILL
EXPIRE AFTER IT HAS QUERIED A CERTAIN  NUMBER OF HOSTS. IF THE NETWORK CONTINUES
TO GROW, AND NO  ONE IS PROVIDING ANY FILES, YOUR QUERY WILL HIT ITS EXPIRATION
DATE BEFORE IT ARRIVES AT A USEFUL HOST."

        - from Salon

==============

What this means, simply, is that  when you search for a file, you use up some of
the resources WHICH ARE NOT REPLACED unless you turn around and share the files
you downloaded and kept. The next new user will get less search results. 
Eventually, most  users will get little or no search results.  No results, no
files.   Furthermore, as the network grows it becomes harder and harder to find
an open download slot.  Those few who share the majority of popular files only
have a finite amount of bandwidth.

What? -  you say you only have a dial-up connection or a rip-off  DSL or  Cable
upload speed of only 70-90 kbps?  Read on:

You CAN share files and do other things with your connection too! Most clients
let you control the number of connections to your machine and the bandwidth they
consume.  That way, you can have a limited gnutella connection running in the
background and most of the bandwidth will still be reserved for yourself.

Share a dozen MP3 files or 20 MB of images and e-texts. Allow one or two upload
connections and that's all it takes.

Remember, if you download files and want the gnutella network to survive, make
those same files available so others can download them too.

Thanks and keep sharing! :)