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- trollzor, on 10/10/2007, -0/+91They will be polishing brass on the titanic if they try to "fork" from the standard with proprietary extensions. The number of people using free software and open source clients is huge, Azureus has been downloaded from Sourceforge almost 150million times and ABC 10 million times.
- bieber, on 11/05/2007, -1/+72Blegh. Here's to hoping that "SDK License" doesn't forbid you to use the protocol in, say, a GPL application. It's going to be very, very uncool if the free bittorrent projects end up having to clean-room reverse engineer every new protocol iteration...
- MercedRocks, on 10/10/2007, -3/+62I think it was just a matter of time considering they are trying to create a business model that revolves around BitTorrent distribution after all.
- Kickboy, on 11/05/2007, -0/+58The only conclusion I expect is that within a few years, someone will have developed a spin-off of the BitTorrent protocol that is open source and people will start moving towards that. This is the beginning of the end for BitTorrent in any real-world sense. Most developers are probably going to stick with the older protocol versions, and not even bother with the new one.
I still don't understand why they couldn't just change the license in such a way that it would prevent malicious companies from creating spyware-ridden clients. Such as... GPL v3? - jouissance, on 10/10/2007, -1/+54I don't care what the prognosis is right now, this does NOT bode well for the torrent community in coming years.
- JeffH, on 10/10/2007, -1/+48"As a company that distributes a free product, no one should ever have to pay for the BitTorrent client. Ashwin told Slyck.com that by keeping the source closed, it creates a "certain amount of distinction" between the official client and maliciously repackaged software."
And the software that isn't malicious such as ABC and Azurues?
I think I speak for all of us when I say "***** you" Ashwin. - Jugalator, on 10/10/2007, -0/+44A lame excuse... The benefits for a free software like BT, at least for the BT community of developers, far outweigh the disadvantages with the occasional rotten egg. It's a bit like making Linux closed source because you don't really like some distros that use it. :-p
- SystmBetatester, on 10/10/2007, -3/+44who says we have to work around bittorrent? why cant we make our own damn protocol and watch their sell out asses fall in the dust!
- estvir, on 10/10/2007, -0/+35To "BitTorrent"
YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. - eugene259, on 11/05/2007, -2/+26True but being open source hasn't stopped other companies from creating business models, famous examples MySQL and Red Hat. Being in business is not the motivation behind their decision.
- mickrussom, on 11/05/2007, -0/+23Response to this: fork and die.
BitTorrent/Bram just sealed a casket. Charging for a protocol is like charging for TCP. And with Azureus Vuze and mldonkey out there who cares.
There is room in this world for basically Microsoft and maybe IBM to charge for "protocols," (like the ability to stream WMV and play it), but to open and then close = fork and die.
That Ashwin guy is a rug-merchant type, he knows how to wheel and deal and do the CEO thing, but I think he doesn't get why his company isn't a commercial success, and closing the source code isn't going make commercial miracles happen.
You think the content companies, and Yahoo, and all the other people trying to trickle-channel or channel media with P2P don't have the specs for a protocol like this? What would prevent them from DIY rather than pay BT? Nothing.
This is simply allowing engineering to hide the fact they dont have anything new and original to do so they button up the code to hide the fact there is nothing to see here, and the result will be a fork and die. - lengau, on 10/10/2007, -0/+22You're incorrect.
(1)The Bittorrent protocol specification allows the creation of closed source clients from the spec.
(2) Bittorrent 6 is actually the next version of µTorrent.
(3) Even if Bittorrent 6 were based on Bittorrent 5, the owner of GPL'd code is allowed to close the source of the next version, as long as he/she/it owns the copyright to all of the source code. - ianweir, on 11/05/2007, -0/+22If his logic regarding closed source being more 'distinct', and keeping out malicious re-brandings of the same client made any sense whatsoever, the entire open source community would become closed source long ago for the sake of keeping out malicious re-brandings.
- Guspaz, on 11/05/2007, -0/+21The vast majority of extensions to the original protocol have been from the community anyhow. The mainline client was forced to adopt them, rather than the other way around.
Some extensions, like PEX, DHT, or encryption remain fragmented (in that not every client supports the same standards there). Others, like support for multiple trackers in a torrent or the private bit, are pretty much universally supported.
Mainline introduced what is currently probably the most popular standard of DHT, but Azureus was first with a different DHT standard.
It's tempting to say that any proprietary extensions to the protocol will die off due to lack of support. However, uTorrent is a very popular client. It seems to be much more popular than Azureus or any other open client (from my random checks of the peers in swarms I connect to). If BitTorrent choses to discontinue the uTorrent fork and only continue with BitTorrent 6.0, and assuming the entire uTorrent userbase moves over to that, they have the critical mass to support those proprietary features as the most popular client.
On the other hand, it simply may not matter; the protocol as it stands today is already so fragmented, with different clients supporting different variations of different extensions (as mentioned above), and yet they all work remarkably well together. The fact that my copy of uTorrent can't query the Azureus DHT swarm or trade peer lists via PEX with Azureus clients doesn't seem to matter much. - DaManDOH, on 11/05/2007, -2/+231. This seems to be a clear move on "IncTorrent's" part to integrate DRM functionality into future revs of the protocol.
2. V-Spurring a GPL edition of the BitTorrent protocol and reverse-engineering the post-5.0 extensions shouldn't be tricky (ignoring DRM and forgoing any "IncTorrent" C&D letters, of course.) Can anyone say Linux vs. BSD?
3. Many businesses already have full-license or independent, forked-off BitTorrent-based P2P clients (i.e. Blizzard's downloaders.)
4. IMHO, if integrated DRM is included with future closed revs, it'll lead to a schism in the Torrent community, most landing on the Anti-DRM side. - inactive, on 11/05/2007, -0/+15Closed source so they can put a backdoor in the new client and monitor what you download.
- Dumbledorito, on 10/10/2007, -1/+16Hey! You read the headline! Gratz.
- Jugalator, on 11/05/2007, -0/+15I can picture a new "open sourced BitTorrent protocol" group created that forks the protocol from where it is now. After all, the current version is GPL licensed. Since uTorrent is now owned by these guys, that could however strangely enough render these clients protocol-incompatible with uTorrent in the far future. :-S
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -3/+16if this helps us continue to ***** the RIAA and MPAA then i dont care
- kurtergad87, on 11/05/2007, -2/+15Adding spyware to a closed source program isn't that hard either if you have the motivation.
- timla, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12The whole "malicious companies" argument is a ruse, a coating to make their jagged little pill go down a bit easier. The reason they are closing the source is to try and make money.
- eugene259, on 11/05/2007, -0/+12No but they will sell content over the 'new' BitTorrent for money.
- fkr3, on 11/05/2007, -2/+14Well, why didn't you just make your own damn protocol already? You've had years and BitTorrent has been distancing itself from the piracy-crowd for ages.
- eugene259, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11Not sure if this helps anyone but RIAA and MPAA. This move by BitTorrent Inc could be a prelude to aligning them with RIAA etc... They will introduce DRM and start selling content over the new clients and protocol 6+ while millions of people worldwide keep using other clients and protocol 5+ pirate stuff like nothing has changed. Pity about uTorrent, it was a really good app and the future versions might not be compartible with the FreeTorrent (protocol 5) ;)
- eugene259, on 11/05/2007, -1/+12OpenTorrent anyone? ;)
- Dankoozy, on 11/05/2007, -1/+12So now bittorent 6 will be reduced to a little-used distribution mechanism for DRM content by a few select companies who pay the license
They want your money, they want to control your computer with DRM and now they want your upstream bandwidth as well. - JonForTheWin, on 11/05/2007, -0/+10Close the source to prevent malware?
I call *****, mal-bitches can get around this with ease!
Just bind the malicious .exe to the utorrent setup .exe! Or cripple the utorrent .exe to not run without the malware .exe!
DOWN WITH BT 6 - yingjai, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10I've already made the switch back to Azureus from uTorrent. Azureus Vuse 3.0 looks pretty cool if not redundant in the design of interface.
- daftman, on 11/05/2007, -0/+10What are you talking about? There is the software, the client and there is an SDK, another software. The software and the SDK aren't the same.
However, if the SDK license allow the developers to create GPL software, the original bittorrent software can remain closed source but other derivative bittorrent client can be open source. - daftman, on 11/05/2007, -0/+9Why would you need to? Just build upon the bittorrent protocol and if they becomes proprietary, fork it. See OpenSSH for example.
After SSH becomes closed source, OpenSSH becomes much more popular than the original SSH itself. - jesperht, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9@godamit: You didnt read the article did you? :)
- daftman, on 11/05/2007, -1/+10Yes but because it is a GPL, people who release spyware-ridden clients also have to release the source, thus effectively rendering the term "spyware" pointless since you can find the spyware code in the source.
I don't think you have any idea what GPL is do you? - JonForTheWin, on 11/05/2007, -5/+14Basically what they've done, is take someone ELSE'S bit torrent client and re-package IT to be a malicious client.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9BitTorrent, Inc. is completely irrelevant. The reference standard for torrents will be whatever TPB chooses to support.
- elsJake, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8And so it dies ... or forks and they lose.
- daftman, on 11/05/2007, -1/+9Er no. If Linux has the same number of spyware ridden distro, people would simply use the ones that are not filled with spyware. Linux cannot closed itself down because the developers have more balls and don't spread ***** excuses like spyware, etc.
- kurtergad87, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Once an product has been granted a certain license, that license cannot just be withdrawn. The current bittorrent (protocol) algorithm can be used in GPL'd applications and any new protocol iteration will probably come from the Floss applications such as Azureus.
- fremeer, on 10/10/2007, -3/+10yes you've finally made a monkey out of me
- osc1882, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I see, thank you.
- geminitojanus, on 11/05/2007, -0/+7Oh there are ways, distributed keys, special handshakes, changing encoding schemes at programmatic intervals; remember, there's no such thing as "perfect DRM", it's goal is to make it hard enough to the point that you just don't want to bother with it anymore. And that's exactly what will happen in this case. Developers will get tired of BitTorrent adding more cruft to the protocol they don't want to support, and they'll fork it and do their own thing.
- alancramer, on 10/10/2007, -17/+24You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
- DarkQuazar, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8I just love waking up to bad news...
- quik22, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6aloud? uh.... aloud???
- init100, on 11/05/2007, -0/+6I agree. There is an "easy" solution to the problem of malicious repackaging: Sign the official package with a key belonging to Bittorrent, Inc. Anyone that downloads something claiming to be the official package should verify that the signature is correct.
Of course, most Joe Lusers won't do this, since it is somewhat complicated. - daftman, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8"yep, people need to eat."
Then say that we want to closed the software and charge people for money now instead of the spyware *****.
How can their reputations be damaged? The majority people used the official software like Azureus, utorrent, etc. If people use their trademark, they get sued. If they add spyware to the original, they get found out and people will still use the major ones. Making things closed source doesn't stop spyware.
You obviously have no ***** idea what you are on about. Either you are very stupid or you are trolling. - daftman, on 11/05/2007, -0/+6Because releasing a GPL software educates mankind. I would rather they said that, "nah we want to close the source because we want to make money" instead of the ***** excuse of spyware and other people making money. People who use open source software download them from a trusted source. This include the official linux repositories.
- monikerd, on 11/05/2007, -1/+7Funny, I just read, the end of bittrorent.
All the excuses this "ceo" makes are fantasies. They needed it to be opensource in order to grow pass the critical mass bittorrent needs to be succesful. Now they think they can make it closed and make more money. I wish them good luck. But I know I wont use it since all the linux distro's i'll torrent will use opensource clients. And all the people that torrent warez probably are smart enough not to use something closed source which is controlled by a company.
They just went bankrupt, and don't know it yet. - praveenmarkandu, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6there is no good that can come out from this... if Bittorrent Inc/uTorrent keep going down this road, it would possibly mean the death of them.
- geminitojanus, on 11/05/2007, -0/+6MP3 was "the standard" because it was implemented in hardware. Try to play back your custom format on that...
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