First I would like to thank you for your site, support and enthusiasm.
1. Why did you decide to discontinue XoloX?
XoloX was build as a platform for new technologies that could provide a
valid revenue model.
We build this easy interface, high performance file sharing application so
we could do testing with viral-distribution and grid-computing. Viral
distribution tests have been done with the auto-update feature in XoloX.
Viral Distribution is interesting for parties who distribute a lot of files
from a couple of selected servers. (updates, virus scanners). Eventually
this concept could be made transparent for Huge news sites.
The second concept is grid-computing. We wanted to exploit computing power
of users in return for their XoloX usage. This way a valid model could rise.
XoloX is discontinued, partially to the lack of funds and partially to the
increased threat for law-suits.
2. Zeropaid.com Members want to know “Has the RIIA killed the first
gnutella
client?”. Was XoloX contacted by the RIAA or a record company?
XoloX was never contacted by the RIAA or some other record company.
3. Do you think file sharing hurts American and/or overseas industries?
File sharing impacts life in general.
On the short term some businesses flourish by this. Think of high speed
internet connection providers.
Here, the music and the movie industry are definitely put in a disadvantage.
On the long term, some industries will shrink (music distribution, music
stores) and new organisations will rise. (e-distribution, video on demand).
4. What’s your opinion on music subscription services. Do they stand a
chance while networks such as gnutellaNet and WinMX exist?
It is hard to fight a battle against products that are free to use.
But I do think that there are two kinds of people.
The first one doesn’t want to pay anything and has the ability to download,
install and use free sharing utilities. He/she is willing to accept the
inferior quality of those free networks (slow downloads, uploads etc.).
The second group doesn’t really care for the low cost of music exchange and
they will be happy to pay for quality concerning the downloads (fast
downloads, no uploads, no bugs) and quality concerning the extra information
they are offered (artist point of view, reviews etceteras)
5. Was XoloX funded or was this a private endeavor? What made you create
such a handy p2p tool?
XoloX wasn’t funded in any way. We are a small IT company in Holland,
founded in Feb ’98. Last year we tried to launch a couple of interesting
internet concepts. The latter one was XoloX. We created XoloX because we
wanted to combine the best P2P features in one application so we could test
new technology and revenue models. In the mean time we were contracted for
some IT jobs to earn a living. We also have decided to quit our IT firm and
all three of us are looking for jobs right now. (interested, contact us :->)
6. Which file sharing client/network do you use past/present the most?
I don’t think there is one client I like better than XoloX (:->), but
besides XoloX I do use E-Donkey. The technology they use in their software
is quite up-to-date (stable and partials etceteras), but I dislike the
download speed and their user interface.
7. Who has been the biggest influence in open-source gnutella
development?
On March 14, 2000 AOL’s Nullsoft made the public start.(ZP online 1 week later) From early on,
Bearshare and Limewire made users aware of Gnutella and they produced a
small but stable user community. So the good thing about gnutella is that it
has been around for a long time.
That would suggests that the clients are all well developed and
technological advanced.
However this is not the situation.
To my opinion LimeWire and Bearshare could have done more to implement new
features that matters. Bearshare Defender was supposed to run with supernode
technology, but I haven’t seen a version yet.
The multisourced downloading and sharing of partial files is an easy concept
with a lot of ROI. XoloX was the first one to implement this technology on
Gnutella. I hope XoloX activated LimeWire and Bearshare and others to
develop the same-like feature.
So, In short I think we all played a big role in the evolution of Gnutella
P2P. LW and BS in the
beginning with launching a somewhat user friendly client; last year, XoloX
by inspiring the community with valuable features and further simplifying
the UI.
8. Which features would you like to see in a future gnutella client?
I think our concept really proofed itself.
1. Simple interface. The majority of the people doesn’t care for the
options.
2. Auto configuration. Minimize all questions for users.
3. Smart researching. To finish downloads as quickly as possible one has to
search to find new hosts constantly.
4. Multiple source download. This is important for fast downloads and it
spreads the load over the network.
5. Partial downloads. Files are getting bigger and this feature must be
implemented for a network to provide new hot material quick.
6. Supernode technology. This would dramatically increase the searching
capacity and lower the overhead bandwidth.
9. Playboy or Perfect 10?
Team XoloX Snapshot
From left to right.
David Beentjes, Arno Steenbekkers, Michel Pasman
XoloX Fix
XoloX Info
XoloX Screenshots
Forum
Finally I want to thank the XoloX community for supporting and inspiring us.
Special thanks goto (no specific order) Moak, TheSeeker, Michael, Jorge
(ZeroPaid), Marc (gnutelliums) and Simon (Gnutella.co.uk).
