Developers of peer-to-peer file-sharing application Freenet issued a long-awaited "major release" on Monday, marking the controversial project's first such advancement since August 2001.
The announcement ends an extended quiet period for its creators and underscores their hopes of reaching more users.
Like its more popular peer-to-peer cousins Kazaa and Gnutella, Freenet allows people to exchange files over the Internet through a shared network.
But unlike other networks, Freenet's creators say they designed the application with free speech, not free entertainment, in mind. The software provides a forum for anonymous publication, using data encryption and a decentralized network designed to prevent shutdown by anyone -- unfriendly governments, ISPs and even the network creators themselves.
Hampered by stability problems and a less-than-friendly user interface, earlier versions were relegated to a limited audience of tech-savvy users. But Freenet's developers say version 0.5 addresses those limitations, and includes enhanced encryption and anonymity capabilities.
The application's identity-cloaking design makes it impossible to determine the actual number of users, but 25-year-old Freenet project founder Ian Clarke says the software is downloaded roughly 2,000 to 3,000 times daily. Last week, Kazaa averaged 442,460 downloads a day on CNET's Download.com.
Reportedly, users in China have translated the software's user interface to Mandarin Chinese, and have adapted it for distribution on a single floppy disk.
"I'm told they're using it to share documents the government has been trying to censor, some of which are related to the Tienanmen Square massacre and (banned Chinese spiritual organization) Falun Gong," Clarke says.
He acknowledges that Freenet will inevitably also be used by the Web's "seedier elements" to distribute other kinds of outlawed content -- potentially including child pornography or racist propaganda. Freenet's distributed design means that a network participant could unknowingly store fragments of illegal or offensive content on their computer, in encrypted form.
"If you believe in freedom of speech, you need to protect other people's right to it, even when you disagree or find it distasteful," Clarke says. "Freenet is like a parallel World Wide Web, where everybody is anonymous."
The project's conceptual base was documented in 1999 in a paper Clarke, who is Irish, wrote while studying at Edinburgh University in Scotland. On a whim, he published his paper online, soliciting help to execute the project. Freenet's first release launched in March 2000, and Clarke moved to Los Angeles shortly thereafter. Freenet now consists of about 30 volunteers and one paid student developer.
This week, Clarke also announced he is stepping down from Uprizer -- a company he founded in 2000 to explore commercial applications for Freenet -- to launch a new company called Cematics.
Clarke says Uprizer will relocate to Singapore, where it will find a ripe market for its content distribution products in a region where bandwidth cost is widely estimated at four to five times U.S. averages.
Freenet's developer fans are creating a number of surprising applications for the software, including one designed to enable FM-quality radio broadcasting over its network. Projects like these aren't likely to win the notorious network any new friends among entertainment lobbyists who argue it promotes unlawful distribution of copyrighted material.
But Clarke claims copyright law was the last thing on his mind when he started the project.
"So much of the uproar over copyright implications of Freenet seemed off-topic to me," he says. "I wanted to say, 'Look, welcome to the jungle. This is capitalism, where people are forced to adapt to new technology.' Copyright is just one way of encouraging artists to create.
"And, ultimately, free speech is more important than your current copyright laws."
