In an isolated town such as Pilani with limited options for leisure activity, DC++ serves as an invaluable source of media for entertainment and otherwise. It has a staggering range of content that caters to the needs of different students—latest episodes of popular TV shows, top-rated movies, textbooks and course materials, and perhaps most importantly, suspiciously large homework directories. The English Press Club interviewed the DC operator lolmax to gain more insight into the working of DC.
DC++ is an open-source peer-to-peer file-sharing client. Essentially, users can share files amongst each other directly without the need for a central server to store files. Each DC hub is hosted centrally on a single laptop. If for any reason this laptop were to stop working, the hub would go down with it. DC runs on a network of operators and downloaders—downloaders pool in resources and download new content, and operators are downloaders who have the additional responsibility of dealing with backend issues. Individual downloaders specialize in certain types of content and the downloading work, which comes from requests through a DC bot, is loosely split on this basis.
DC was initially set up on campus in 2006, but the popular DeZire hub was only started in 2008. One of the more popular theories about the history of DeZire claims that the hub derives its name from Maruti Suzuki DZire, the car of a student, presumably the hub owner. The car was unique because the numbers on the license plate matched the BITS ID number of the student. After an accident involving the vehicle, the hub was named after the car in its honour to commemorate the coincidence.
At the height of its usage, DC++ had a strong culture of usage with multiple hubs and a large and active user base. However, this culture has been in steady decline over the years and DC is now a shell of its former self. The number of daily users today is a mere one-fifth of its peak, the volume of data transferred has reduced, and the number of hubs have decreased. Currently two hubs exist—the aforementioned DeZire and Pilani Pirates. Perhaps the primary reason for this decline is the lackadaisical and uncaring BITSian attitude towards DC; most students do not bother to share or reshare content. To make matters worse, the L3 authentication and data cap implemented by the IPC hampers downloaders.
While there have been a few efforts to improve the operation of DC, they were largely unsuccessful. According to lolmax, while there is no official channel between DC administrators and the IPC, there were some discussions a few years ago about the possibility of opening a permanent DC hub at IPC. This move would have ensured transparency and avoided the hassle of hub shifting, but the hub operators of the time have since graduated, leaving the project incomplete with no indication of resumption.
Due to these challenges posed by low student resharing and Institute restrictions, the job of downloaders and operators has become all the more difficult. Frustrated at the state of affairs and the lack of value given to their effort, the admins took to Reddit to address the issue. Earlier this semester, they posted an announcement on the college subreddit stating that they would terminate hub operation until due importance and value was given to DC. Predictably, the announcement received heavy backlash because of its ambiguous stance; the admins went on to clarify their position in a subsequent thread.
DC admins criticising or complaining about the state of affairs is not a recent phenomenon. Similar incidents have happened over the past few years and rightly so—admins cannot be solely responsible for DC’s upkeep. DC is only as good as its community.