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BitTorrent Closes Source Code
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Aug 08, 2007 09:34 PM
from the taking-my-toys-and-going-home dept.
from the taking-my-toys-and-going-home dept.
An anonymous reader writes ""There are two issues people need to come to grips with," BitTorrent CEO Ashwin Narvin told Slyck.com. "Developers who produce open source products will often have their product repackaged and redistributed by businesses with malicious intent. They repackage the software with spyware or charge for the product. We often receive phone calls from people who complain they have paid for the BitTorrent client."
As for the protocol itself, that too is closed, but is available by obtaining an SDK license."
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In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
"There are two issues people need to come to grips with," BitTorrent CEO Ashwin Narvin told Slyck.com. "The genie is back in the bottle, and the cat is back in the bag."
Sorry, I just thought that was funny. If you RTFA, though, it sounds like the sky isn't falling just yet. The client, which was closed source before, is still free (as in free beer), and the protocol is available to anyone who asks for it.
Re:In related news... (Score:5, Insightful)
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 - this is like a fish flopping around on the deck of a fishing troller. . To throw is words back at him, a bottled genie cant grant wishes.
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.
Parent
Re:In related news... (Score:5, Insightful)
My final year project as an undergrad was designing and implementing a protocol for roughly the same target as BitTorrent. BitTorrent started to become popular after I had begun working, and so I tried to compare my protocol to theirs for the final dissertation. It always amazed me that a protocol could become popular with no documentation; the only protocol documentation I could find was the (Python) code for the official client.
After finding out as much as I could about the protocol, it seemed like every time there was a design decision to be made, they picked the wrong one. The protocol has a staggering overhead, no possibility of adding multicast if it becomes widely deployed, and the out of band channels are designed in such a way as to make it trivial for anyone with a basic understanding of game theory to create a client that leaches a huge amount more than it uploads.
Hopefully this move will encourage the IETF to ratify a decent peer to peer protocol (have they even got a P2P WG yet?).
Parent
Re:In related news... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
rtorrent pwnz (Score:5, Informative)
http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/ [rakshasa.no]
with adsl2+ i could get >1meg/s with hundreds of connections, totally stable and only used around ~1%cpu time on a p3 933.
use gentoo and -O3 it too.
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KTorrent (Score:5, Informative)
I've also dabbled with mldonkey and shareaza as more multi-purpose p2p apps that also support torrents.
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Re:KTorrent too CPU hungry (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:In related news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but at least I know that Azureus isn't reporting what I'm downloading back to the mothership. You know, the same mothership that has signed deals with members of the MPAA [betanews.com].
Anybody using a closed source bittorrent client to do anything more aggressive then download a Linux distribution is insane, IMHO.
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Re:In related news... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:In related news... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Oxymoronic: thief cries thief !! (Score:5, Informative)
It's a pity they're going closed source, but it wouldn't be unfair for Blizzard to toss a few gold pieces back their way given all the money Blizzard is making.
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Re:Oxymoronic: thief cries thief !! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not RTFA? Read this at least. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not RTFA? Read this at least. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Not RTFA? Read this at least. (Score:5, Insightful)
Alternately, all of the open-source clients could develop a separate protocol that they would all implement in parallel to the official one. A fork of sorts, but expect all clients to end up supporting both/all when all is said and done.
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Re:Not RTFA? Read this at least. (Score:5, Funny)
No, you completely misunderstand, Bittorrent's management are absolutely brilliant. If they keep bittorrent open source, then it's impossible to pirate. By "closing" it, they are actually making it possible for people to get bittorrent as god intended. By pirating it.
Parent
Re:Not RTFA? Read this at least. (Score:4, Informative)
However this will not be the case, Ashwin told Slyck.com. Although the latest documentations won't be published for the world to see, an aspiring BitTorrent developer or a hardened coder can still obtain the specifications on the latest protocol extensions by obtaining a SDK license.
"I don't think we've ever said no" to an aspiring BitTorrent programmer, Ashwin said.
Parent
Re:Not RTFA? Read this at least. (Score:5, Interesting)
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It was only a matter of time.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Malicious software re-packaging is a lame excuse too.
Re:It was only a matter of time.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This excuse is exactly what pisses me off the most. I mean, you want to close the source? Fine, just don't act like you're "doing it for the children".
Parent
Re:It was only a matter of time.. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. It doesn't sound like business as usual to me.
Parent
Re:It was only a matter of time.. (Score:5, Interesting)
One difference. They don't operate any of the servers people actually use. Unless they can convice the server operators (most of whom they can't legally even admit exists, which will make negotiations somewhat awkward) to adopt their closed protocol, who will notice any optional dead protocols their 'official' but little used client supports?
At this point someone simply needs to write up a formal documentation of the protocol as it currently exists and submit it to the W3C, at which point the wire protocol is pretty much settled. And go ahead and pick a new anme because you can bet your last dollar they will pull the trademark crap the second they realize they are being written out of the picture.
Parent
Re:It was only a matter of time.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:It was only a matter of time.. (Score:5, Informative)
First, Bittorrent is a peer-to-peer protocol. Only a minor part of it is communication with the server (aka tracker). They might keep the tracker protocol exactly the same, and alter the important p2p part.
Second, this has already been done, and successfully. For example, utorrent came out with a 'PEX' (Peer Exchange) protocol that wasn't in the spec. So it was only used between peers that were both using the utorrent client. This provided a nicer bittorrent experience for utorrent users, especially as utorrent's marketshare rose. Later on, because of utorrent's dominant position, other clients started to implement utorrent PEX (KTorrent, libtorrent-based clients), with varying degrees of success.
A similar issue is Azureus's DHT protocol, which is not in the standard. Although at least Azureus is open source, so you can read the actual code to help in understanding what nonstandard protocols they have invented (but then they also have a very nice wiki).
The point is, it is easy to 'embrace and extend' the bittorrent protocol, even if you don't have control of the servers. Is 'extinguish' next? Probably not, but I for one won't be using the official Bittorrent client.
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So.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ryan Fenton
Re:So.... (Score:5, Funny)
Ryan Fenton? That's a strange name for a protocol...
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Done and done! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:So.... (Score:5, Funny)
OpenRyanFentonKabuke.
And rather than going from version 0.9 to version 1.0, it will go from 0.9 towards 0.9.1.16rc(NaN-Inf) without ever getting to 1.0. Just you wait...
Parent
Re:So.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:So.... (Score:5, Insightful)
-Bittorrent creates a new protocol (I'll call it 'bt2') that is completely incompatible with bittorrent as it currently stands. The new protocol offers heavy-duty user authentication and encryption, and is basically designed to distribute pay-to-watch Hollywood movies, in order to save the studios from actually paying their own bandwidth bills.
-Bittorrent "updates" uTorrent to use the new bt2 protocol, although it would probably be more of a complete rewrite. They ignore the old open-source 'reference implementation,' announce that it's deprecated, and try to get everyone to download the new client.
-People running porn/warez/movies trackers do nothing, keep running the tracker software that they're using right now.
-Some idiot users will undoubtedly go and download the "new and improved" uTorrent, fire it up, and realize that they can't connect to anything, and the
-Users delete new uTorrent, go back to old version, or get Azureus instead.
Going forward, I think that what'll happen is there there will either be a complete fork, with Bittorrent splitting completely from the mainstream community and producing a client that's used only for commercial applications (distributing movies, etc.), and which can't connect to most non-commercial trackers, or they will continue to produce uTorrent and try to play both sides of the street with it: connecting via the new protocol to commercial trackers for pay-to-watch content and the regular protocol to all other trackers so that it doesn't get totally ignored by users.
However, this puts Bittorrent in the unenviable position of having to constantly keep up with the OSS side of things, and doesn't really threaten the openness of the protocol. Any way you cut it, they're going to be following, not leading.
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If only... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, wait...
Re:If only... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
So.... (Score:5, Funny)
The argument doesn't scan.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The argument doesn't scan.. (Score:5, Informative)
Because that's not enough to constitute infringement of the license. People are welcome to repackage and resell GPL software. But they also need to consider trademark issues. They can call the software almost anything they like, they can claim that their product is just like another, but if they claim that their product is the other one, then the original company can take them to court and sue their euphemisms off.
And that, of course, is why claiming that GPLed software is open to this kind of abuse is the reddest of red herrings. Trading on someone else's good name is well covered in the laws of most countries, and the GPL has exactly zero impact on such abusive practices.
Parent
Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
Note that they opposed the addition of encryption, and they were completely ignored. BitTorrent, the company, is entirely irrelevant.
Not a good move (Score:5, Funny)
Heh heh. (Score:5, Insightful)
If they merge uTorrent (non-free, closed) with the older "BitTorrent 5.0" (open source, free), hell's going to break lose if there's any GPLed patches in the open source that Bram didn't make.
GPL applies to even "lowly" patchers and debuggers code, as it does to the 10klines per day guys.. (joke)
Im ready for a torrent of gpl-violations
Must ... resist ... pun ... can't ... (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry about that. Truly, deeply sorry.
Looking forward to spending more time with family (Score:5, Funny)
A: Once word gets out about our RIAA backdoor, Azureus is going to kick our ass. Ummm... you better not print that.
What am i missing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:other open source clients? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:other open source clients? (Score:5, Insightful)
utorrent may be the single most popular BT client as TFA claims (OTOH, most of the peers I see are Azureus and Ktorrent. I don't know if that's just because I'm in the odd niche of only doing legal stuff over BT (no, it exists, really Linux and *BSD ISOs), or if most people are using those, I don't know.
Either way, what I expect will happen if they go totally closed will be much like what happened with SSH. After the official SSH became closed and proprietary, the OpenSSH project picked up where they had left off, and while SSH is still in business and has a product line, OpenSSH took over the market and is now far more popular, on both the client side and the server. If BT totally closes everything off and makes the protocol incompatible with open versions, I think we can reasonably expect to see the open source version fork and take over the BT market.
Parent
Re:other open source clients? (Score:5, Interesting)
People use Bittorrent -- or more specifically, many people use uTorrent -- to connect to public BT trackers and to other people running similar client programs. Bittorrent (the company) doesn't control either. In fact, I don't think that Bittorrent-the-company's "reference implementation" is particularly popular for trackers, and they're really where the marketshare matters.
I don't think that the majority of bittorent (the protocol) users are just going to bend over and throw away the software that they've liked, just because Bittorrent (the company) decides it would be cool to produce a new, ad-laden, DRM-using, Hollywood-mogul-approved version of their software, that breaks compatibility with older versions. In fact, I strongly suspect that the trackers which drive the more popular torrent aggregation sites would refuse to recognize such a "broken" implementation, and would instead favor free implementations (old versions of uTorrent, Azureus, etc.).
What's happening here is that Bittorrent (the company) has become fully decoupled from bittorrent (the protocol). They have very little leverage over the latter; about all they have is the rights to the name "Bittorrent," and the 'reference implementation,' which won't be worth its weight in electrons once they start messing with it.
The comparisons to Microsoft and RTF aren't really apt, because Microsoft had a way they could easily control the format -- they just made future versions of Word produce output that was incompatible with other vendors' software. But Bittorrent can't really do that, because a bittorrent client is only useful insofar as it can communicate with the swarm. As long as the trackers that drive the most popular torrents (which, let's face it, are the illegal ones; warez and movies) don't start using the new/broken protocols, it seems unlikely that a broken protocol would gain traction.
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Re:other open source clients? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:RTFA and I'm confused (Score:4, Insightful)
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O/T (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:GPL (Score:5, Informative)
The only thing it can do is keep that source (the version that was under the GPL) available to the open-source community. Which, btw, can be accomplished by any other open-source license. Btw, they have already done this.
Basically, we're in the exact same situation now that we would have been if it was GPL'd.
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Re:What's the negative of closed source in this ca (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:What's the negative of closed source in this ca (Score:5, Insightful)
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