Patent ID: 7533161

Claim:
A peer-to-peer network system, comprising: a plurality of peer nodes coupled to a network, wherein one or more of the plurality of peer nodes are configured to store: a plurality of different classes of software modules provided by one or more of the peer nodes, wherein each different class of software module is instantiated on one or more of the peer nodes as a plurality of different module implementations of the module class; a module class identifier for each different class of software module that uniquely identifies the respective class of software module; a plurality of module specification identifiers that each uniquely identifies a different one of a plurality of different module specifications for each different class of software module, wherein each module specification specifies an expected on-wire behavior and one or more network protocols for a particular embodiment of a respective class of software module; and a plurality of module implementation advertisements for each module specification, wherein each module implementation advertisement describes a different module implementation of a corresponding module specification, wherein each module implementation for a module specification is configured to execute within a different execution environment.