Yes in the sense that users pool resources for the network, but no in the sense that Napster relied on a centralized database of content - whereas Freenet is entirely decentralized.
Also Freenet is much more general, you could think of Napster like a shared hard drive, whereas Freenet is like a shared computer capable of running decentralized applications like group chat, social networks, search engines, etc.
Is there any reason why a system like this can't be distributed like bittorrent? It just seems like decentralization is used to censor content at the node.
Gnutella was decentralized like Freenet, but it's broadcast search approach limited scalability relative to Freenet's "small-world" approach which can scale indefinitely.
Yes in the sense that users pool resources for the network, but no in the sense that Napster relied on a centralized database of content - whereas Freenet is entirely decentralized.
Also Freenet is much more general, you could think of Napster like a shared hard drive, whereas Freenet is like a shared computer capable of running decentralized applications like group chat, social networks, search engines, etc.
Is there any reason why a system like this can't be distributed like bittorrent? It just seems like decentralization is used to censor content at the node.
I'm not sure what you mean, Freenet is at least as decentralized as bittorrent.
I thought Gnutella was a bit more like Freenet than Napster, iirc only the bootstrap was centralized.
Gnutella was decentralized like Freenet, but it's broadcast search approach limited scalability relative to Freenet's "small-world" approach which can scale indefinitely.