Peer-to-peer-like Systems
In modern definitions of peer-to-peer technology, the term implies the general architectural concepts outlined in this article. However, the basic concept of peer-to-peer computing was envisioned in earlier software systems and networking discussions, reaching back to principles stated in the first Request for Comments, RFC 1.
A distributed messaging system that is often likened as an early peer-to-peer architecture is the USENET network news system that is in principle a client–server model from the user or client perspective, when they read or post news articles. However, news servers communicate with one another as peers to propagate Usenet news articles over the entire group of network servers. The same consideration applies to SMTP email in the sense that the core email relaying network of Mail transfer agents has a peer-to-peer character, while the periphery of e-mail clients and their direct connections is strictly a client–server relationship. Tim Berners-Lee's vision for the World Wide Web, as evidenced by his WorldWideWeb editor/browser, was close to a peer-to-peer design in that it assumed each user of the web would be an active editor and contributor creating and linking content to form an interlinked web of links. This contrasts to the broadcasting-like structure of the web as it has developed over the years.
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