So end users who want to make use of new and exciting internet software, peer to peer applications, media streaming and other tools need a business class connection?
So end users who want to make use of new and exciting internet software, peer to peer applications,
media streaming and other tools need a business class connection?
Because having terms against running a server off consumer pipes stops you from using 'exciting internet software', streaming, or using 'other tools'?
Yes, it does. Most modern internet multiplayer games use some sort of P2P functionality at this point, whether for voice chat or hosting or matchmaking. Software/game updaters tend to use P2P to download large patches. Media players might use P2P to accelerate downloads. Gaming consoles like the PS3 allow 'remote play' by acting as a server for remote connections. People turn their home machine into a server to connect using remote access software. Etc, etc.
In a pedantic sense, yes, a P2P program is a server, but at that level of technicality, anything could be considered a server -- which is the point I am trying to make: you guys are taking this notion of 'server' to an absolute extreme that undermines you point. Pretending that these terms forbid you from downloading a WOW patch is flat out absurd, and to continue down this line shows you aren't concerned about practical reality.
> In a pedantic sense, yes, a P2P program is a server, but at that level of technicality, anything could be considered a server
Well, no. Plenty of programs exist which do not listen for and respond to network connections, either exclusively initiating network connections (pure network clients) or not communicating on the network at all. It is not the case that using "server" to mean what it actually means suddenly means "anything could be considered a server".
> Pretending that these terms forbid you from downloading a WOW patch is flat out absurd, and to continue down this line shows you aren't concerned about practical reality.
The terms plainly prohibit that (assuming that WOW patches use P2P software which involves a server, which I have no certain knowledge of since WOW isn't one of the things I have much interest in.)
It may (quite likely is, from what various Google employees have apparently said about how the Google Fiber policy is enforced) be that the actual enforcement of the terms does not, which actually is problematic in a different way (what it means is that the terms are not the real rules, and the real rules are not disclosed, which, on top of whatever problem the server prohibition itself has with the Open Internet order's neutrality provisions, seems to fall afoul of the order's transparency provisions; which underlines the extent to which what Google is doing here is exactly what the FCC Order -- which Google lobbied heavily for -- was designed to protect consumers against.)
That's nothing pedantic about saying P2P is a kind of server. It can accept connections from clients and it can serve data to them. That's exactly what a server is.
If tomorrow I roll into Apache a feature for it to download files from other websites, it's effectively a P2P app. Are we not going to call Apache a server?
A web browser, on the other hand, is not a server.
