Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 10:50:47 -0800 (PST)
From: Lisa Mann <lisam@oreilly.com>
To: corbet@lwn.net
Subject: First Peer-to-Peer book released


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	
CONTACT: Lisa Mann
(707)829-0515 ext. 230
lisam@oreilly.com

Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies


Sebastopol, CA--The cluster of technologies we're now calling peer-to-
peer is a melting pot of ideas that's about to boil over. The term
"peer-to-peer" has come to be applied to networks that expect end users
to contribute their own files, computing time, or other resources to
some shared project. Even more interesting than the systems' technical
underpinnings are their socially disruptive potential: in various ways
they return content, choice, and control to ordinary users. "The recent
furor over peer-to-peer file sharing using Napster masks a deeper
revolution," said Tim O'Reilly, president of O'Reilly & Associates
"It's not just some little market segment, but the new shape of the
computer industry as a whole."

Although O'Reilly's latest release, "Peer-to-Peer; Harnessing the Power
of Disruptive Technologies" (edited by Andy Oram, US $29.95) is mostly
about the technical promise of peer-to-peer, it also talks about its
exciting social promise.

Communities have been forming on the Internet for a long time, but they
have been limited by the flat interactive qualities of email and
Network newsgroups. People can exchange recommendations and ideas over
these media, but have great difficulty commenting on each other's
postings, structuring information, performing searches, or creating
summaries. If tools provided ways to organize information
intelligently, and if each person could serve up his or her own data
and retrieve others' data, the possibilities for collaboration would
take off. Peer-to-peer technologies along with metadata could enhance
almost any group of people who share an interesttechnical, cultural,
political, medical, you name it.  "Seemingly small technological
innovations in peer-to-peer can radically alter the day-to-day use of
computer systems, as well as the way ordinary people interact using
computer systems," says the book's editor, Andy Oram.

"Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies" presents
the goals that drive the developers of the best-known peer-to-peer
systems, the problems they've faced, and the technical solutions
they've found.

Written by leaders of the field of peer-to-peer, including:

Nelson Minar and Marc Hedlund of Popular Power, on a history of peer-to-peer

Clay Shirky of Accelerator Group, on where peer-to-peer is likely to be headed

Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly & Associates, on redefining the public's perceptions

Dan Bricklin, cocreator of Visicalc, on harvesting information from end-users

David Anderson of SETI@home, on how SETI@Home created the world's largest 
computer

Jeremie Miller of Jabber, on the Internet as a collection of conversations

Gene Kan of Gnutella and GoneSilent.com, on lessons from Gnutella for peer-
to-peer technologies

Adam Langley of Freenet, on Freenet's present and upcoming architecture

Alan Brown of Red Rover, on a deliberately low-tech content distribution 
system

Marc Waldman, Lorrie Cranor, and Avi Rubin of AT&T Labs, on the Publius 
project and trust in distributed systems

Roger Dingledine, Michael J. Freedman, and David Molnar of Free Haven, on 
resource allocation and accountability in distributed systems

Rael Dornfest of O'Reilly Network and Dan Brickley of ILRT/RDF Web, on 
metadata

Theodore Hong of Freenet, on performance

Richard Lethin of Reputation Technologies, on how reputation can be built 
online

Jon Udell of BYTE and Nimisha Asthagiri and Walter Tuvell of Groove 
Networks, on security

Brandon Wiley of Freenet, on gateways between peer-to-peer systems


"One of the more exciting recent developments in system engineering has
been the confluence of ideas from censorship-resistant systems such as
the Eternity Service, file-sharing systems such as Napster, and ad-hoc
networking technologies such as Bluetooth. These ideas will enable us
to overcome the limitations of DNS; in future, we will be able to
tailor our network infrastructure to our application, rather than the
other way round. This book is an important survey of early work and
current ideas in the field. It should be read by everyone involved in
designing the next generation of networked systems."--Ross Anderson

"What could be more disruptive than a world of peers who depend on
nobody and influence everybody? If you don't know, this is your book."
	-- Doc Searls, Coauthor, The Cluetrain Manifesto

"A great book. Peer-to-Peer is the best resource available today for
those interested in understanding the history, details, and
implications of the peer-computing revolution."
	-- Kevin Werbach, Editor, Release 1.0

For more information about the book, including Table of Contents, index, 
author bio, and samples, see:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/peertopeer/

For a cover graphic in jpeg format, go to:
ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/graphics/book_covers/hi-res/059600110x.jpg

Peer-to-Peer
Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies
Edited by Andy Oram
March 2001 
ISBN 0-596-00110-X, 448 pages $29.95  (US)
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
http://www.oreilly.com
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