[Zope-dev] BitTorrent

Shane Hathaway shane@zope.com
Fri, 19 Jul 2002 13:41:52 -0400 (EDT)


BitTorrent is an interesting, new, open source project.  It enhances
Internet file downloading with peer-to-peer ideas, taking a lot of the
burden off the central server.  I tried it out last night.

What I didn't know until after I had downloaded it is that BitTorrent is
written in pure Python!  It integrates with the browser in the same way as
ExternalEditor does, with a special mime type that launches BitTorrent.
The client is relatively easy to install and very easy to use.

http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/

It would be cool to see a Zope product that takes advantage of this.  It
would be very simple--it would allow users to download anything in Zope
via BitTorrent.  Say you have a file at:

http://zope.example.com/linux/kernels/kernel-2.4.19.tar.gz

You could point your users at the following URL and have everything "just
work":

http://zope.example.com/linux/kernels/kernel-2.4.19.tar.gz/torrentify

It would take a huge burden off your server.  Anyone interested?  I
shouldn't take this on myself, but I'd happily help someone out!

Shane