Re: [Mldonkey-users] Enough is enough! Please read this!

[René Gallati]

Hello list,

just my few cents to this discussion.

> I understand your annoyance about eMule's strategy of preferring other
> eMule clients in sharing. This "feature" must be removed.

I read a statement like this above every now and then, but quite many
recently. Unfortunalty it is NOT TRUE !

At least not in the sense everyone thinks it is. Yes, eMule has a credit
system. However it doesn't work quite as many think it does. Straight to the
point: Everyone and their brother say that eMule clients prefer other eMule
clients because of the credit system. This is wrong however ! eMule clients
with the credit system enabled (it is enabled by default) prefer EVERY
client that uploads to them. It doesn't matter if the other client is a
eDonkey, overnet or mldonkey client. If you upload to a eMule client, that
eMule client will remember YOU (with your md4-client identifier hash) no
matter which client you used. If you want to download something from that
client, you are prefered over other contenders as well.

So this feature is not limited to eMule only. Please be aware of that small,
but significant detail. eMule always prefers clients which uploaded to them
when they have the credit system enabled.

On the contrary, when an eMule clients uploads to a mldonkey client and
later wants something from the mldonkey client, it does not get special
treatment from mldonkey, because mldonkey (or eDonkey or overnet for that
matter) don't have such a credit system. So when they want to download from
you, they are as equal as any other client.

The fact that eMule clients tend to "stick together" because of a ping-pong
uploading between themselves b/c of the credit system is also only partially
true. This ping-pong effect only ever happens, if two eMule clients both
have only parts of a specific file both want and are then giving themselves
credits (and using them again) until one has the file complete. Then this
cycle is broken since it does no longer download from the other eMule thus
no longer building up credits. Also, this ping-pong effect is not limit to
eMule either. As I said above, when you upload something to eMule, you get
credit for that. Now if a eMule client and a mldonkey client both want to
get a file and both have only (different) parts of that file, then you will
get preferred in eMule when you've uploaded to them. On the other side, the
eMule client is not distinguished from the other peers by mldonkey so it
does not get preferred, but WHEN an eMule client is getting file-data from
mldonkey, it does remember that and if the mldonkey client is still trying
to download this file, it gets preferred status in that eMule's queue.

Also being prefered on a eMule client doesn't mean no one else will ever be
uploading from them. It is exactly what the name implies : You get prefered
a bit. But you don't get exclusive access nor will it remove non-prefered
peers.

So the credit-system of eMule is not all *that* bad. It has some rather
strange side effects that make it abusable (albeit only by continous
intervention of eMule users) but some people are already working on a better
system than the one currently in place to make it prefer clients in a way
that a file's rare chunks are spread faster.

> 1. Stop developing interfaces to other networks like KaZaA for the
> moment and start repairing the donkey network. This would be best done
> by improving the already built-in mldonkey server, maybe releasing a
> server-only version. Most important thing here is: This server MUST BE
> FREE. There must not be any client detection or things like that. We
> have to show that everybody is welcome and equally treated.

The current most number 1 problem with the eDonkey network is that many many
many ISPs have started to traffic shape port 4662 down to preserve bandwith.
If everyone would chose one random port for the file transfer the whole
"help I cannot download anymore" discussions would disappear magically.

--

C U

     - -- ---- ----- -----/\/  René Gallati  \/\---- ----- --- -- -