Editing Ends and Means (section)

===Material Peer-to-peer===
The most salient feature of the Free Network architecture is its ability to enable communications that are ''materially'' rather than ''logically'' peer-to-peer. In [[logical peer-to-peer]], the pattern of value exchange is peer-to-peer, but the pattern of information exchange is not. This is what we have today with, for example, [http://p2pfoundation.net/Bittorrent BitTorrent] or [http://p2pfoundation.net/Gnutella GNUtella], [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Freenet Freenet Project] or [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/I2p I2p]. Value moves from peer to peer, but the information itself passes through an intermediary (the Internet Service Provider). We are not truly engaging in peer-exchange when we involve a paid, third-party provider for bit moving. Such activity fits the peer-to-peer model only at the level of the application layer, a logical overlay, the very highest layer of the network stack.


What the Free Network enables is a radical departure from such a shallow model, towards a model that is peer-to-peer from the ground up. This means that everything from the physical medium of transmission (radio waves), to the pattern of exchange (social networking), is based on horizontal peering. Neighbors talking to neighbors directly, or via other neighbors, eventually without the need for paid bit-transit.