Flash p2p possible without Cirrus/LCCS?

Is it true that Flash p2p cannot be done without Cirrus/LiveCycle Collaboration Service? I've seen a similar question on SO and it is claimed there that it cannot be done. So, why not? Also, I've seen 开发者_JAVA技巧comrade back2dos had some thoughts on the problem, but he was downvoted, so I am wondering whether he's right?

Check this out if you only need peer to peer on a LAN: http://www.flashrealtime.com/local-flash-peer-to-peer-communication-over-lan-without-cirrus/

True P2P isn't really possible since the FlashPlayer can't accept incoming connections from peers, only mediated connections from a common host service.

So while Cirrus and LCCS offer a sort of P2P functionality, it's not true P2P.

That said, what they do provide could "easily" be replicated, a host which registers Flash based clients (persistent connection to the host is mandatory) and mediates communication between them is not the most complex thing in the world.

It really depending on the specific sort of application you want to build, a Torrent client is (due to the lack of direct incoming connection support) for example, impossible. But collaboration and other similar P2P apps are quite possible without Cirrus/LCCS.

I am not familiar with those technologies. However, I do know that Flash has implemented a low-level, XMLSocket class. Depending on the complexity of what you're doing, this may be a suitable solution. I haven't used it personally, but I have a friend who created a simple game client using this.

Flash Media Server Enterprise is not mentioned? It's like Cirrus with old-skool AS1 and advanced video streaming. And in AIR you can do some stuff you cant do in Flash Player, like opening all kinds of listening sockets.

It's so hard because they want to keep control over the $$$ (FMS is pretty expensive, although Amazon EC2 has it).