LinuxJournal: Tim O’Reilly’s Post-Apocalyptic Pants2Pants

“During the Gold Rush, some prospectors got rich quick and some
didn’t. Levi Strauss got rich slow by selling everyone a pair of
pants, which you need, gold or no gold. Getting into today’s
Peer-to-Peer rush without going to Tim O’Reilly’s conference is
like trying to mine gold with no pants on. Even though peer-to-peer
as a business model makes about as much sense as a gold rush in a
minefield, people are sure going to go through a lot of pants that
way.”

“Attendees at the conference included hackers from some of the
cutting-edge crypto-elite trust-no-one projects such as Freenet,
Free Haven and Mojo Nation (plus people from espra.net, who were
searching for an Ethernet connection to finish their software for
release during the conference); the inevitable venture capitalists
and marketing people in search of business models; and reporters,
some clueful, others just looking for whatever the Napster users
are going to go use now that napster.com is Dead. The media line
was as long as the regular attendee line at registration, for
“Bob”‘s sake.”

“Now, even though I’m writing this in the secret Linux
Journal bunker in Seattle, I can still hear all you Old Un*x Farts
out there scoffing in your mighty beards. Peer-to-peer is just
end-to-end for people who don’t remember end-to-end,
right?“

Complete
Story