Until now, the accuracy of internet weather reports – timed pings to various servers on the network to test traffic speed – has suffered as a result of collecting data in a single geographic location. Wired reports a new initiative from Black Light Media (BLM) which hopes to overcome this weakness. Interweather (coming soon to www.interweather.com) plans to measure data loss from servers volunteered by 20 or 30 locations around North America. An interesting twist to the BLM proposal is the plan to release Interweather’s source code under the GNU Public License (GPL) model, just as Linux and Netscape Communicator are published. The idea is to involve the free software community in testing and improving the system. Interweather rival NetStat has also announced plans to release its source, but the well-established Internet Traffic Report, which is also moving to distributed data collection soon, has said it will not publish its code.
