Gnutella Links General IP Issues6/5/2000; 7:17:16 AM April 19, 2000: Jacob Levy needs a weblog... here's a smattering of Napster & Gnutella links he posted in a DG message.I actually can't understand the Upside article in those links; the article uses Napster to mean both the software and the company and doesn't clarify the two very well. For instance, the big paragraph I don't understand:

Yet, because "online services" and "network access" are such broad terms, and because Napster functions both as a peer-to-peer client and as a server, it could very well meet the definition of a "service provider."

Napster-the-company is not a peer-to-peer client, but they may be a server of search results. Napster-the-software may be both server and client, but software can't be a "service provider", which has to be a person or corporation (as "service provider" here is a role a human or company plays, not just "a thing which provides service"). My attempts to tease out what that paragraph means have been futile.Like I said yesterday, enough with the companies with products with the same name!