P2P-hackers is a well-regarded mailing list frequented by P2P developers and researchers. It brings together academics, industry developers, and gray hats, and hosts topics ranging from DHTs to error-correcting codes to punching through NATs.

I’ve happily subscribed since college, so when David Barrett suggested a meetup for the bay area members, I jumped at the chance. We met at Ryoko for sushi, which was a lot of fun. Any place that has a grand piano with two turntables on top of it gets my vote!

Over 20 people turned out, and the conversation was lively and far-reaching. We chatted about food, gadgets, games, movies, and of course, P2P. Lots of well-regarded universities and companies were represented, including Amicima, Berkeley, CivicSpace, Limewire (née Gnutella), Gnuterra (née Morpheus), NYU, Red Swoosh, and Stanford.

Sure, we talk about P2P and distributed systems on list all the time. Still, it was fun to shoot the breeze about the latest developments in person, and especially to meet so many people in the community face to face.

Thanks for organizing, David! I can’t wait for the next meetup.