On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 3:32 AM, mike <emesee3(a)gmail.com> wrote: I've since noted a very interesting little link: 'GitTorrent' at http://gittorrent.utsl.gen.nz/rfc.html The abstract: "This document describes the GitTorrent Protocol version 0.1, referred to as "GTP/0.1". The GitTorrent Protocol (GTP) is a protocol for collaborative git repository distribution across the Internet. It is best classified as a peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol, although it also contains centralized elements. Git is a decentralized version control system (VCS) created in the beginning of 2005 by Linus Torvalds. To date only client-server based distribution has been supported. Although git is already able to densely exchange updates between repositories and thereby minimize the overall resource requirements for distribution, this will occasionally involve clients cloning a complete repository. This places much strain on sites hosting many git repositories in terms of request-processing and sheer bandwidth. It is the goal of GTP to facilitate such hosting sites in reducing resource demands by using P2P distribution. Normally a client does not use their upload capacity while downloading a repository. The GTP approach capitalizes on this fact by having clients upload bits of the repository data to each other. In comparison to the original client-server distribution, this adds huge scalability and cost-management advantages. People can set up "mirrors" of torrents, and have them advertised with less administration and more convenience to the user than setting up a regular mirror." -- gwern