more on Suprnova's eXeem beta review and screenshots

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Jamie McCarthy <jamie () mccarthy vg>
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 11:00:00 -0500
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Suprnova's eXeem beta review and screenshots

dave () farber net (David Farber) writes:

> Suprnova.org's vision of the future is called eXeem.

BitTorrent succeeded in large part because it was free and open.
Many clients were written, for every platform, and users could pick
their favorite.  There was tremendous innovation on the server side
too.

eXeem will be closed-source and Windows-only.  So basically, it's
another Kazaa lookalike.  There are plenty of those already.

Suprnova succeeded because there was a small cadre of people
ensuring the high quality of submissions.  It is not at all clear
that a decentralized system of voting can do the same.  Perhaps this
will be successful, but it's by no means certain.

eXeem will be adware.  Considering the people behind it are not even
revealing who they are, have hired a front-man to be a shill, and
are dealing on the fringes of the law, do you really trust that
showing ads is all it will do to your Windows machine?

And to sell ads, at some point that shadowy company will have to
accept money from advertisers.  Unless they find advertisers who are
willing to deal in cash on the black market (unlikely), at that
point, law enforcement can step in and shut the whole thing down,
leaving users with nothing but a presumably-nonfunctional
closed-source Windows application.

Suprnova is a heck of a brand name, to be sure:  millions of people
know and trust it.  But the only relation between Suprnova and "the
new Suprnova" is the name.
-- 
  Jamie McCarthy
 http://mccarthy.vg/
  jamie () mccarthy vg

------ End of Forwarded Message


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