About this site
Piecewise is an independent reference on peer to peer file transfer: what the protocol does, what the software does, and what every number in a client window means.
It is written for the person who has a transfer running and has met a word they were never told the meaning of. Every page starts with the answer, explains the mechanism behind it, and then says where that mechanism shows up on their own screen. There is no product here and no account to make.
A new project at an old address
This web address was used many years ago by a different project: a community build of a peer to peer client released in 2005, which was discontinued not long afterwards. Piecewise is a new and unaffiliated reference. It is not that project, it is not written by or connected to its authors, it is not connected to any later owner of this domain, and it claims no continuity with any of them. That software is described once, in the history section, in the past tense, as one episode in a field that has moved on. It is not offered here in any form.
What this site will not do
- It carries no index, directory or list of any site, tracker or community, and names none of them.
- It will not help anybody find, choose or obtain copyrighted material.
- It hosts no software and links to no download of any kind.
- It recommends no service, ranks no vendor, and sells nothing.
- It gives no legal advice. Copyright law differs by country and by case, and nothing written here applies to any particular reader or any particular file.
How the pages are written
Where behavior differs between programs or releases, the page says so rather than inventing a figure. Where a number would be typical rather than exact, it is written as a range in words. Where something is genuinely uncertain, the sentence says that too. A reference that guesses is worse than no reference.