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Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: idolminds on Wednesday, August 08, 2007, 10:24:15 PM

Title: BitTorrent goes closed source
Post by: idolminds on Wednesday, August 08, 2007, 10:24:15 PM
How strange (http://www.slyck.com/story1566_BitTorrent_Addresses_Closed_Source_Issues). Bet this is because of their site now that sells legal content and junk.

Developers can sign up to receive the SDK that has the newest protocol updates to implement in their clients. Everyone is now waiting for the ironic torrent of the pirated SDK.
Title: Re: BitTorrent goes closed source
Post by: Xessive on Wednesday, August 08, 2007, 11:26:29 PM
Quote from: idolminds on Wednesday, August 08, 2007, 10:24:15 PM
How strange (http://www.slyck.com/story1566_BitTorrent_Addresses_Closed_Source_Issues). Bet this is because of their site now that sells legal content and junk.

Developers can sign up to receive the SDK that has the newest protocol updates to implement in their clients. Everyone is now waiting for the ironic torrent of the pirated SDK.
That is disappointing. Though that ironic twist would be funny :P
Title: Re: BitTorrent goes closed source
Post by: Quemaqua on Wednesday, August 08, 2007, 11:33:13 PM
Weird.  Knowing little about all this, I have no idea how it affects... well, anything.
Title: Re: BitTorrent goes closed source
Post by: scottws on Thursday, August 09, 2007, 05:46:42 AM
Yeah, but aren't the code-bases that are already out there still open-source?
Title: Re: BitTorrent goes closed source
Post by: idolminds on Thursday, August 09, 2007, 09:00:11 AM
Yes. And thats the funny thing with this. Say BT makes enough changes to the protocol to break compatibility with all the current trackers. The official BT client would then only work with the official BT tracker, and will end up being next to useless.
Title: Re: BitTorrent goes closed source
Post by: scottws on Thursday, August 09, 2007, 12:37:41 PM
That's what I was thinking.  However, then I read the article and realized that the mainline client is now uTorrent, which is also the most popular one.  So the majority of users would be unaffected.
Title: Re: BitTorrent goes closed source
Post by: Cobra951 on Thursday, August 09, 2007, 12:41:46 PM
Given why BT is all over the place, this move will never work.  The cat's out of the bag.  He won't get stuffed back in.  Idol said it.  All that the "official" BT people will do eventually is isolate themselves into a much smaller user group.  Without enough users, BT isn't worth it.  The alternative is to stay compatible with what the masses will continue to use.  And in that case, why bother with the closed source?

Edit:
Quote
While the BitTorrent client and the latest protocol may not be published, therefore technically closed source, the protocol is still open. The details of the protocol extensions, including all the latest revisions, are still available to whoever wants them, providing they obtain the easily obtainable SDK license. BitTorrent's recent move isn't going to make everyone happy, but those wishing to help develop the BitTorrent community probably won't notice much of a difference.

I should have read the article before sounding off.  If uTorrent is the most popular, is now officially part of the BT thing, and the protocol remains open, then I don't see things diverging in the future.  Info will still make it to whoever wants it, license or no license.