That’s the informal debate being waged online by a vocal contingent of file swappers, who for the past three days have been trying out a hastily produced upgrade to the most popular file-swapping service to arise since Napster’s demise.
“I realize that the release of this version was moved up because of outside influences, but that only excuses so much.”
But the transition, which involved stripping out the old Morpheus software and replacing it with open-source Gnutella file-trading technology–is proving rough.
“It’s like if the rest of the United States moved to California,” said Kelly Truelove, an independent peer-to-peer analyst. “There’s going to be some stress on the infrastructure.”
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Still, early user reviews e-mailed to News.com and posted on Download.com indicate that StreamCast has an uphill fight.
StreamCast has made it clear that this (the preview edition) is a rushed edition, released before it was fully ready. The company said it plans to fix problems and appealed to visitors for patience and support.
“Keep in mind that this is only our preview edition,” the company told its users on its Web site this weekend. “Anytime change occurs, many object and think the old version was better…Since our company and your P2P network are being attacked, we would appreciate your constructive comments for improvement, not simply criticisms.”
—-On Friday, Griffin said there had been some dispute over StreamCast’s payments of licensing fees to Kazaa BV. But he said that disabling Morpheus software would have violated Kazaa BV’s contract.
Executives from Kazaa BV could not be reached for comment.
