Word: servers
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...appeared to him as something tangible--a hard, shiny piece of black metal--that he had to forge and form so that it became usable, so that the hard black metal was transformed into a friendly tool, so that the 0s and 1s, the Windows API protocols and Unix server commands, were all somehow buffed and polished and worked to a fine, wonderful, simple application. That was his idea. And it was big and frightening and full of implications, and it filled him up, this 18-year-old college dropout sprawled on the floor in his uncle's office...
...believed in it because his idea was so simple: a program that would allow computer users to swap music files with one another directly, without going through a centralized file server or middleman. He'd heard all the complaints about how frustrating it was to try to find good music on the Net, how so many of the pointers on websites offering current (which is to say copyrighted) music seem to lead only to dead ends. But Fanning figured out that if he combined a music-search function with a file-sharing system and, to facilitate communication, instant messaging...
...appliance: log on, download, play songs. The simplicity of the program is part of its genius. Since he took only three months to write the source code, Fanning says he didn't have time to make it more complicated. He had to learn Windows programming in addition to Unix server code, which he had taught himself. It is exceedingly rare for one programmer to excel at client and server applications, but Fanning had no choice. "I had to focus on functionality, to keep it real simple," he says in his gravelly monotone. "With a few more months, I might have...
...business, but he also helped launch a new programming movement--and a whole wave of start-ups dedicated to what has become known as P2P, or peer-to-peer, client-based Internet software. Among Napster's revolutionary qualities is that it allows computer users to exchange files directly, avoiding server bottlenecks and, Fanning once hoped, legal problems. Only Napster's index and directory reside on a central server; the files are actually transferred via various Windows protocols directly from user to user. That means that no copyrighted material is ever in Napster's possession...
Steven S. Wallace, the chief network architect for Indiana University, said most efforts to block Napster would not work if students connected to "mirror" servers other than the central Napster server...