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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BitTorrent, Inc. Acquires uTorrent
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This could turn bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.howawesomeisthat.com/)
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.
Re:This could turn bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://fnarg.com/)
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.
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.
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.
Re:This could turn bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
The end? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.cmd.nu/)
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?
Leave it alone! (Score:1)
(http://www.jaredbroad.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday November 26 2006, @01:39AM)
Oh god, leave it alone! uTorrent is perfect!
Re:Leave it alone! (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://osiris.f2g.net/)
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.
on IRC (Score:5, Informative)
With you kind permission ... (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't display the micro symbol at ./? (Score:1)
It isn't as if uTorrent needed this.... (Score:1)
(http://sanghahost.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday March 23 2005, @08:47AM)
How will this affect their user base? (Score:1)
Frankly I'm a little disappointed, but not surprised.
Time to turn off (Score:1, Insightful)
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?
Azureus (Score:1)
(http://www.someoneto.stick.by/ | Last Journal: Monday October 23 2006, @10:59PM)
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.
Back up your copies (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Back up your copies (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.someoneto.stick.by/ | Last Journal: Monday October 23 2006, @10:59PM)
goodbye, good ole u! (Score:1)
Free PHP web based torrent - Plug (Score:2)
(http://www.danslagle.com/)
Open? (Score:1)
Why is anyone surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://rickosborne.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday June 12 2002, @12:32PM)
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)
(http://rg03.wordpress.com/)
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.
I have a dream... (Score:1)
(http://www.scareyedhawk.com/)
Will they make uTorrent Free? (Score:2)
(http://www.tester.ca/)
Snore! (Score:2)
Not called "uTorrent" (Score:1, Redundant)
mommy (Score:1)
stop the madness! (Score:5, Funny)
List of Things to Do... (Score:2)
1. Open uTorrent
2. Click on Options
3. Click on Preferences
4. Untick "Check for updates automatically"
5. ???
6. Profit.
qbittorrent (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Thursday September 21 2006, @07:20AM)
name merge? (Score:1)
Emergency Switch? (Score:1)
(http://www.leperkhanz.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday October 01 2003, @05:17AM)
All I use is FOSS, except for utorrent. The latest builds of Shareaza haven't really been working that well for me, so that one is out too....
rhY
Re:Obligatory (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Mod parent up (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:bleh (Score:4, Informative)
Not that I wouldn't mind taking a look at that codebase. You know, just for curiosity's sake.