For quite a while now I've been working on a project at work that
involves a peer-to-peer network of web servers passing documents around.
It involves using globally-unique identifiers that point back to the
server that "owns" the document.  That way, you can ask any server in
the network for the document, and if it doesn't have a copy, it knows
where to get it.

There are a lot of complications involving requesting documents from
behind firewalls, and passing private documents around using untrusted
public servers, and keeping information from escaping when you don't
want it to.  And of course the little problem that making copies all
over the network like that is copyright infringement on a grand scale.

At the same time, I've been trying (but not hard enough, seemingly) to
regain my momentum on a project to build a community website where
filkers could share their work.  It's called <a
href='http://penguinsong.net'>PenguinSong.net</a>, and for a long time
it's been labeled as my "latest insane project".  Meanwhile, I've been
admiring archive networks like <a href='cpan.org'>CPAN</a>, and web
applications like <a href='http://gallery.menalto.com/'>Gallery</a>.

What I realized this morning is that all the complications around
document distribution problems go away if you require documents to have
licenses that allow free redistribution, like the <a
href='http://creativecommons.org/'>Creative Commons</a> family of
licenses.  And I've known for a while that the right thing to do with
PenguinSong is to turn it into a portable web application like Gallery.

Hmm.  Light begins to dawn.