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David, This situation - popular information is easily available, less popular information may be unavailable most (or eventually all) of the time - is no different from the current situation. Even without Napster, popular information is easy to find (in bookstores, video rentals, etc.), and less popular information is not (some books I can grab at the bookstore down the street; some I can order from Amazon; some are out of print, but I can get at the library; some are rare and I actually need to travel to get them; and some are simply lost to the sands of time). The Web drastically increases the availability of rare information. I'm sure you realize there will be a variety of ways to locate information, of which the Napster model is but one. Some will involve caching information. I also know you're way to experienced a developer to leave the only copy of important information on your laptop. (And why use a cable modem when you'll be able to go wireless?) Matthew > -----Original Message----- > From: David Megginson [mailto:david@m...] > Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2000 8:21 AM > To: xml-dev@x... > Subject: Re: what Napster means for XML > > > W. E. Perry writes: > > > I'm sorry, I don't follow this at all. There is an initial moment > > when the only copy of SAX offered is the one on your laptop, > > connected to your cable modem. While that copy is available--an > > hour, a day--dozens of interested parties will download it. > > OK, let me rephrase then -- in a distributed system like Napster, the > likelihood of the availability of any piece of information at any > particular time is dependent on its popularity. If enough users have > copies of the information on their systems, then at least one of them > is likely to be connected when I go looking; otherwise, the > information is simply unavailable. > > This works well with MP3s because most people go out looking for the > same few thousand MP3s over and over again. In the general case, > however, this model will not always be applicable: any piece of > information that does not reach a certain level of popularity will > simply be unavailable most of the time. > > Clearly, the Napster model *will* be work in other areas that share > similar properties to MP3s -- a relatively small number of items with > a relatively large number of users -- so please don't take this as a > blanket dismissal. > > > All the best, > > > David > > -- > David Megginson david@m... > http://www.megginson.com/ > > ************************************************************** > ************* > This is xml-dev, the mailing list for XML developers. > To unsubscribe, mailto:majordomo@x...&BODY=unsubscribe%20xml-dev > List archives are available at http://xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ > ************************************************************** > ************* > *************************************************************************** This is xml-dev, the mailing list for XML developers. To unsubscribe, mailto:majordomo@x...&BODY=unsubscribe%20xml-dev List archives are available at http://xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ ***************************************************************************
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