[Axiom-developer] downloading via BitTorrent

[Page, Bill]

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file distribution protocol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorrent

I have recently installed BitTorrent clients (MLDonkey) on both
the axiom-developer.org server and axiom.risc.uni-linz.ac.at
mirror.

http://mldonkey.sourceforge.net/Main_Page

As an aside: I think MLDonkey itself is rather interesting since
it is implemented in OCaml:

http://mldonkey.sourceforge.net/ObjectiveCaml

OCaml is a functional/imperative language not too different from
Aldor and the Axiom SPAD compiler and is the language in which
Coq proof assistant is written:

http://pauillac.inria.fr/coq

and so is quite important for potential integration of mathematical
theorem into Axiom.

And MLdonkey also implements it's graphical user interface via a
web browser.

-------

Anyway, BitTorrent is hugely successful at downloading large files
by distributing the responsibility for serving these files to the
clients doing the downloading themselves. The two installations of
MLDonkey provide the "seeds" from which it is always possible to
obtain a copy of a file but they are usually not solely responsible
for delivering copies of these files to clients - that is normally
shared among those client (peer) systems who have already downloaded
the file. This makes it possible provide very high download rates
to a large number of people because the "serving" of the files is
also distributed to other downloaders.

Part of making a file available via BitTorrent is the requirement
to produce a '.torrent' file that contains the binary "signature"
of the original file (among other control information). This
ensures that in spite of being pieced together from many different
download sources, the resulting file is identical to the original
file as registered at a "tracker". So this method also provides
greater security and authenticity of the downloaded file. BitTorrent
trackers also double as search engines for downloadable files.

3 days ago I created a '.torrent' file for the current Windows
binary version of Axiom and registered it at a commonly used
tracker named TorrentBox.com. I also seeded the file at
axiom-developer and axiom.risc and added a link to the '.torrent'
file in the Windows section of:

http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/AxiomDownload

I just checked the status of this file at TorrentBox and I was
amazed to see that in just 3 days the Windows version of Axiom
has already been downloaded 126 times. See:

http://www.torrentbox.com/torrents-search.php?search=axiom&cat=50

Torrent Info    

Edit this .torrent
DL Torrent      axiom-windows-0.1.4.exe.torrent
Info hash       8bb782d62719700957cf2dc6cf0f1f447f227622
Category        Apps - Windows
Size          48.01 MB (50339854 Bytes)
Added         2006-05-01
Views         56
Hits          50
Snatched        126 time(s)
Upped by        billpage
Peers         2 seeders + 0 leechers = 2 peers

---------

This also says that 50 of this "hits" were a result of searches
on the TorrentBox tracker itself while the other 76 were
presumably from the link on the AxiomDownload page.

These 126 downloads were in *addition* to the 29 times the same
file was downloaded from axiom-developer.org

http://page.axiom-developer.org/usage/usage_200605.html

and 204 times it was been downloaded from the axiom.risc mirror

http://axiom.risc.uni-linz.ac.at/webalizer/usage_200605.html

Isn't that rather surprising!???

I did not really expect that there was such a demand for the
Windows version of Axiom. Right now I think the use of BitTorrent
is much more common among Windows users - partly because
BitTorrent is very popular for downloading large music and
video files and linux is not (yet) very good at handling
these. But good BitTorrent clients do also exist for linux.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions about the use of
BitTorrent to distribute the Axiom binaries please let me know.
I am thinking seriously about making all of the Axiom binary
and source tarball files available this way.

Regards,
Bill Page.