LibRaptorQ: Fountain Codes for C/C++

fenrirproject.org

20 points·bb88··8 comments

Fountain codes provide a reliable encoding stream for UDP. This prevents the need to use a complex transport on top of UDP for both unicast and multicast streams.

These fountain codes are some of the coolest and most useful algorithms around. It really is almost like magic, even after you know how they work. I wrote an article a couple years ago about using them for an off-chain file storage layer for a bitcoin-like blockchain that gives a basic overview of why they are useful: https://bit.ly/2Y0ut6X

What's the current patent status?

https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/2554/

It looks like they've always reserved patents for use in any wide-area wireless. So, 3G/4G/5G handsets and chipsets. I'm pretty sure wifi would not be included here, since wifi is not wide area.

Qualcomm didn't invest Raptor codes (they bought out the earlier LT codes, which apparently are still patent protected[1]) so it's still somewhat a concern.

[1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US7139960B2/en

Rust version is faster and in active development.

https://github.com/cberner/raptorq

https://www.cberner.com/2019/03/30/raptorq-rfc6330-rust-opti...

Citation needed.

The Rust thing goes at about 1 Gbps. It doesn't say how fast this one is. "In active development" can mean "not mature yet".

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