Section: Software and Platforms

GPeer: a peer-to-peer javascript communication library

Our software development has been oriented towards systems working in browsers, with the support of an Inria ADT project in cooperation with the ASAP team. To answer our technological objectives, we are working on decentralized architectures, browser to browser, developed in javascript/HTML5. We rely on the WebRTC JavaScript protocol proposed by Google to develop a communication layer between peers. Many peer-to-peer protocols share common elements, that we group in a generic library for developing peer-to-peer systems. The joint library developed with the ASAP team handles any gossip based communication overlay. We design peer messages, tracker management and resilient behavior. The library is a standard bridge between complex browser to browser applications and low level networking layers such as WebRTC. With the use of our library, we can reproduce systems such as bitTorrent, but also provide new applications without the need of either native applications or identified servers.