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BitTorrent, Inc. Acquires uTorrent
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Dec 07, 2006 05:22 PM
from the now-torrenting-faster-than-ever dept.
from the now-torrenting-faster-than-ever dept.
ColinPL writes "BitTorrent, Inc. has taken the next step — the acquisition of uTorrent. In a joint announcement made today, the two firms have publicly solidified the merger. 'Together, we are pleased to announce that BitTorrent, Inc. and uTorrent AB have decided to join forces ... BitTorrent has acquired uTorrent as it recognized the merits of uTorrent's exceptionally well-written codebase and robust user community. Bringing together uTorrent's efficient implementation and compelling UI with BitTorrent's expertise in networking protocols will significantly benefit the community with what we envision will be the best BitTorrent client.'"
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This could turn bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
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'Access to MP3s, Movies & much more. Fast, Anonymous, and Easy!'
One wonders if they got a tap on the shoulder 'get bought or you're screwed, we have new powerful friends'. It's a good codebase perhaps, but they've not exactly shown themselves to be trying to be legit.
That's not all (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:This could turn bad... (Score:4, Informative)
It won't. It's BitTorrent, you already have no privacy. Your IP address is readily available to anyone who cares to look.
Parent
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Re:This could turn bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
The same applies to this Bittorrent/uTorrent merger. So what if Mr Cohen takes Bittorrent in a direction we don't like ? Are we forced to follow ? Heck no. On the odd chance that this group actually creates something better, we're free to embrace their brainchild, or pass on it and look for the next cool thing.
What really grinds my gears though, is all the hubbub with the bittorrent "phenomenon". Seriously, what Mr Cohen has created is hardly any different from Kazaa or Napster, except for its so-called democracy. he's given everyone the freedom to easily spring up a tracker, which is really just an index server. So now instead of having one central hub that can be taken down, we have tens of thousands of puny little trackers that would require individual lawsuits to even try to take down, and no corporate entity behind them to pay "damages" to the litigators. Congrats! Give him a pat on the back for pulling off one of the first solid implementations of the painfully obvious evolution of decentralized file sharing. He didn't cure cancer, he didn't create peace in the middle east, he just took everyone's ideas and made them reality. Now move along, nothing more to see.
Parent
Re:This could turn bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
Face it, the reason BT is so popular is because it is incredibly well engineered. The use of torrent files rather than simple searches with small hash sets (necessary in order to allow search results to be transferred effectively) allows small partial blocks to be shared more effectively and robustly than any other P2P file transfer system has ever allowed. Decoupling search from file transfer has allowed different people to concentrate on different aspects of the problem and evolve their systems with no interdependency on network updates. The use of a centralised tracker rather than the currently-in-vogue decentralised alternatives (DHT, network search) to find sources results in substantially better transfer rates, with only a small reliability sacrifice. And with a DHT as a fallback, not even that.
Yes, none of these ideas were originally Cohen's. But as the first to combine them in a single application, I have nothing but respect for his work.
Parent
Re:This could turn bad... (Score:4, Informative)
Furthermore, the BitComet client had its history of acting like an asshole, ignoring tracker restrictions, not respecting private flags and so on. And that's just bad form.
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Re:This could turn bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ahhh... (Score:2, Insightful)
Now THAT programmer is someone who cares about quality.
irc chat log: with ludde and bram (Score:5, Informative)
Some answers from #uTorrent-questions:
-will uTorrent be ported to Linux?
probably
-how many lines of code is it comprised of?
~50-60K
-will encryption be removed?
no (answered by Bram)
-features most important to you (directed @ Bram)
low memory footprint, code size, cpu usage
-is there any thoughts to an osx client?
(Bram) we plan to produce an up to date osx client, but that's significant porting work
-are there any features that will be removed from uTorrent?
(Bram) we're leaving the uTorrent client mostly alone for now, on the grounds that people like it (further defined 'mostly' as in, not much of anything substantive will change)
-will uTorrent be replacing the original python client?
(Bram) we aren't announcing integration plan details right now
-Bram, are you talking with asus and other router makers for putting uTorent in there?
(Bram) we're talking to lots of people
-will uTorrent ever be open-sourced?
(Bram) not in the forseeable future, but we'll continue to maintain an open source reference implementation
-Bram, you said before that you're not a big fan of protocol header encryption... do you still stand behind this?
(Bram) it isn't much harder for an isp to recognize encrypted headers than unencrypted headers.
-will content be monitored?
(Bram) absolutly not
-does the uTorrent codebase compile on linux today (in your labs?)
(ludde) No
-ludde can't develop anything new for uTorrent?
(ludde) bittorrent inc will do the majority of the development work
-what IDE was uTorrent developed on?
(ludde) Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 with a few routines written in visual cobol. uTorrent was written in C++ with some tiny chunks of assembly
-will uTorrent continue to be free?
(Bram) utorrent will continue to be available and continue to be free (as in, no cost, not open source)
-Utorrent uses a lot of Windows API's right? Won't that be a problem when porting to *nux/OSX
(ludde) Yes, the UI is tightly bound to Windows APis, however, the core backend is easier to port.
(Bram) the utorrent UI is windows native, so porting that part to osx or linux is a significant amount of work (but planned to be done at some point)
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The end? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The end? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the very same thing when I read the title.
uTorrent was an awesome piece of software. It.just.worked. It was small, non-invasive, and non-evilware.
My heart sank.
I have no faith that this would be anything other than the death of uTorrent as a usable client.
(Same as winamp years ago, same as winternals, same as ... the list goes on.)
Oh well, which client does one use next?
Parent
on IRC (Score:5, Informative)
With you kind permission ... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Open source, very small (473 kb), looks promising.
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Unlike the 'console' version, It provides a nice display of current upload and download rates and a progress bar. It doesn't seem to support m
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Rtorrent [rakshasa.no] is by far the torrent client with the smallest footprint.
I tried them all to get one that worked on a 486 with 60MB RAM and no X. Rtorrent (with ncurses ui) was the only one that didn't max out the resources.
Now I can turn my 4Ghz energy hog off at night, and do my downloading on the 486, which uses about as much electricity as a light bulb.
(For ed2k on the same machine I use mldonkey [sourceforge.net].
There's Goes the Neighborhood (Score:4, Insightful)
Reminds me of the time when Microsoft couldn't compete with another x86 assembler on the market. They bought it out, and rather than use it to replace the relatively awful MASM, killed it instead.
Will uTorrent face the same fate? Can we all make money by writing a better BT than BT and taking money for it afterwards now?
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Back up your copies (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Back up your copies (Score:4, Informative)
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Free PHP web based torrent - Plug (Score:2)
Why is anyone surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I remember, Bram always viewed the Python/core as a sort of "reference implementation" -- it was never his goal to make the Python client or tracker the end-all be-all.
Why is it then surprising that he'd want to bring on a client that doesn't have to be Open Source, and thus doesn't have to be clean and perfect, but is still sexy as hell? He still keeps his reference implementation that supports the features and is easy to reimplement a dozen times in two dozen languages
Remember that his goal since incorporating has been to legitimize and broaden the adoption of BT. A sexy client is a huge step towards that goal. It's not like Sony or the MPAA or whomever is going to distribute a customized version of Azureus any time soon -- it's a beast! But a custom version of uTorrent? A 1MB executable that you could throw on a CD that requires zero install? YTF not? Remember also that Strigeus has been working towards licensing out the core engine for uTorrent.
Plate. Shrimp. Plate of Shrimp.
Some of you are excessively paranoid. You know that, right?
(Yes, yes, I know: "Welcome to Slashdot".)
Explanation request (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, when I read people saying they don't trust (sic) Bram Cohen and that they will no longer update utorrent, or that this will be a bad thing, I don't really understand why they are worried. Is it for technical reasons? Do you fear utorrent will stop being tiny _if_ it's made multiplatform? What motivates that fear? Something from the past that I missed? Or is it because of the deal between Cohen and the MPAA? If so, why do you consider it bad? Do you fear the bittorrent protocol and official implementation will suffer because of that deal and that same situation will extend to utorrent? Honest questions, really. Please, englighten me.
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I think the fear is that the featureful, small uTorrent client the world loves will now be "improved" to provide fast dollars for the new owners. And how do you do that these days? Stuff advertsing into your product, turn off advanced features and produce a "pro" version, "encourage" your community to download your commercial stuff, and when they resist then automatically "upgrade" their client for them to follow the new "strategic direction".
The uTorrent community is the bigges
Will they make uTorrent Free? (Score:2)
stop the madness! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Leave it alone! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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It's Open Source, written in Python, and the code is there for you to see.
Re:Leave it alone! (Score:4, Informative)
Shut down the uTorrent central server, and you've effectively halved (or worse) everyone's download/upload speed.
It's a serious problem; if it happens there could be an alternate server, but it would require third party hacks.
Parent
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Shut down the uTorrent central server, and you've effectively halved (or worse) everyone's download/upload speed.
Not quite. It uses router.utorrent.com to bootstrap into the DHT network. But if it already has known nodes (e.g. saved from the previous session) then it wouldn't 'phone home' as you call it. The whole purpose of the Kademlia DHT feature is to be decentralized, i.e. without the need for a central
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Re:Azureus (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand, uTorrent does just about every damn thing most people need and it does it in 1/10th the CPU usage and 1/100th the memory usage of Azureus.
I like never having to worry about whether my torrent program is running in the background while I'm doing foreground tasks so I love uTorrent. I just leave it on all the time, running away, and never even notice it while I'm playing NWN2 or editing photos or watching videos or whatever. And that's the big win.
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I've never heard of anyone using it for that reason. Personally, I use it primarily for it's feature-set and small footprint, and its on that basis that I recommend it to others.
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Re:bleh (Score:4, Informative)
Not that I wouldn't mind taking a look at that codebase. You know, just for curiosity's sake.
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