FAQ

What is Calitko?
Calitko is aimed to become an extensible software P2P platform for resource discovery and resource acquisition. Ultimately, Calitko would let the developers define any kind of resources (files, processors and even persons) and their corresponding services (file transfer, remote computation, instant messaging). Using Calitko, the user could uniformly search for resources and their associated services in all of the supported P2P networks.

What makes Calitko distinct?
P2P is nothing new and there are tons of P2P programs and P2P-related open source projects out there. There is software for file-sharing, for instant messaging, for distributed computations. Calitko tries to bring all different applications of P2P together in order to exploit the full potential of this technology! We plan to achieve this by creating simple but flexible and extensible software design. It would be great if at some point new open source projects are founded to develop plug-ins that add support for new P2P protocols or networks in Calitko.

What is P2P?
The term peer-to-peer describes the concept of communication between computers such that each computer is equal to the others (its peers). There is no division between clients and servers, because actually every peer can both provide and request a service from another peer. The peers are not assumed to be super computers like the traditional servers. Actually, the existing P2P networks are generally built of computers, which are at the edges of the Internet. Thus, a P2P network can make use of resources (network bandwidth, computing power, data storage, content, human presence) that traditionally stayed unutilized.

Which resources and services does Calitko support?
As a first step Calitko developers are currently working on the support for the file resource in the context of file sharing and Gnutella.

Which P2P protocols are currently supported?
Calitko’s support for Gnutella is currently under development. Support for BitTorrent protocol is planned for the very near future.

Where can I get the binaries?
We offer no binaries for download yet. Calitko is still in its early development stage and it is only meant for developers in the time being. You can get the source code here.

Who is Calitko for?
Calitko is still in its early development phase which means it would be more interesting for developers that for users. So, if you are a developer interested in P2P and/or love developing beautiful software, than Calitko will definitely be able to get you thrilled!

How is Calitko being developed?
Calitko is an open source product and is licensed under the GPL. Actually, the Calitko development process was very much inspired by the way software is developed in the open source community: namely, incremental development with short release cycles. We are implementing Calitko in C++ using the Qt4 framework.

Why Qt4?
Qt is a great application development framework. As of version 4.0 it is freely available under the GPL. The motto of Qt is actually true: “Code less. Create more.” Furthermore, all code written using Qt is source compatible with Linux, Unix, Windows and MacOS.

How can I contribute to Calitko’s development?
First of all, get the latest Source Code release. Then you should take a look at Hot Topics and Source Talk to see what developments are currently on. Alternatively, you can check out the TODO list in Calitko’s online documentation.

Where should I submit bugs, patches, etc.?
Please, submit your patches, updates, bugs and bug fixes in Source Talk, where they will be revised by the other Calitko developers (you need to have registered, though). Please, make sure you report the exact version you are using and describe exactly how the bug can be reproduced.

What is Source Talk?
Source Talk is where we, Calitko developers, meet to talk about source code. The main topic is, of course, the design and implementation of Calitko, but do not be surprised if you, for example, read about challenges waiting to be solved in other open source projects. You need to register to be able to post there.