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Gnutella Creator Releases New Free Software
Compenguin writes: "Justin of Nullsoft released three new pieces of free (as in speech and in beer) software, an installer, a pinger/grapher, and a throttlable file copier. They all use the zlib license. The source is available now, marking the first time nullsoft has actually released source to their "Open Source" products *Cough*Gnutella*Cough*."
Given another day or three and they might have released the code.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
What's the point of application-level copy throttling? That's why TCP was invented, for throttling throughput over shared net links.
;-)
OT: one of my professors said that the reason TCP divides its transmit windows by 2 when there is packet loss is because the original authors assumed that packet loss meant you were now sharing that net link with 1 other user. My, how things have changed..
cpeterso
Why do people keep talking about the Gnutella source code? Is it really that important? The protocol is freely available now and there are a lot of Gnutella clients for different platforms. What's the big deal to have the source code to the original Gnutella?
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
SuperPimp is the next generation PiMP. PiMP stands for Plug-in Mini Packager because the origional version of pimp was for winamp plugins.
-Compenguin
In fairness, Gnutella was thrown up for comment, when AOL (the copyright owners) took it down.
Had the source been available, than everyone distributing Gnutella might be in trouble. It was all reverse engineered, which is a good thing. Had the source code been available, AOL could demand all the copies of the program be taken down as violating their copyright...
Just a thought,
Alex
Other than that, this program doesn't seem to do anything that simple buffering couldn't provide. And, as someone else pointed out, I didn't see a link to the source for these programs. I have absolutlely no problem with that, but they shouldn't advertise source if they don't have links to it.
"If I removed everything here that I thought was pointless, there would be like two messages here."
woxy.com - Bam! The Future of Rock and Roll
All three applications are Win32, "Not that there is anything wrong with that".
But, i'm afraid i cant find the source. Is it included in the executable? (no windows systems to run on, so i cant find out myself) Or am I just missing it?
Eh, oh well...
This is a slightly useful network monitor graphing thing for Win32. It just sits in its own window, pinging a host, and giving you a graph of how long it takes each time.
How useful, now we can have more lamers transmitting unnessecary traffic so they can have a little graph show up. Just another reason to drop all incoming icmp.
Working at a company where I have suggested Open Sourcing tools we use and been met with blank stares by superiors I understand his situation.
Unfortunately Justin works for Nullsoft which is owned by AOL which in turn is part of TimeWarner which is a member of the RIAA. It is simply impossible for AOL to let Nullsoft release the source for Gnutella. Considering that Justin probably signed standard industry paperwork when he signed at with AOL , it is very likely that AOL owns the code to Gnutella and decides what gets done to it.
Unless Justin wants an intense legal battle with a corporation with more money and lawyers than you can shake a stick at, he unfortunately has to give in to their demands. Before anyone chides for this "How many of you would risk losing your job and getting involved in an expensive legal battle simply to release source code to a program that can be reverse engineered by any enterprising hacker?"
Surely this isn't really big news? Some guy has written some free software for windows, it's not even especially interesting software.
This looks like a job for freshmeat?
I've noticed some people saying that this isn't a big deal. After all we have tons of open source software for linux. The big difference is that Win32 has been a bastion of shareware, and closed-source freeware with very little open source software. The last program I compiled from source on Win32 was NotifyCD, released in 1998. It's not a common occurance, and it's rarely as high profile as this. After all, Winamp is arguably one of the most popular pieces of software ever, and for them to publically release Windows source is a big deal because it sets the stage for others to do the same.
Also, lest we forget, the installed base of Windows is much bigger, yet there is little free open source software for it, so this will get to a great deal more people.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
Just another reason to drop all incoming icmp.
Dropping ALL inbound ICMP can be a very bad thing.
Blocking ICMP Destination unreachable messages is a pain in the ass - when I try to get to a host, I _LIKE_ getting an immediate reply that there is a network problem (or that the host isn't listening on the port I want to use), instead of having to wait for the connection to timeout.
What about the 'Fragmentation Needed but DF set' message? Blocking that is a GREAT way to screw your connections performance.
I agree that SOME ICMP messages should be dropped (most notably ICMP echo-request) but blocking the protocol entirely is a bad idea. It exists for a reason. Yes, someone might abuse it (like in this example), but then again, someone might abuse UDP as well (what if it did a traceroute continually, so you could see _where_ the connection went bad) - would you advocate blocking UDP completely?
I didn't think so.
Automatically skips or overwrites existing files
Alright! just what I've been looking for, no more "Do you wish to overwrite this file?" pop-ups! WOOHOO!
>produce while working for the company (note: I
>don't say 'on company time, or with company
>equipment').
Yey another reason to work in a *civilized* state like California. Such contracts are illegal and unenforceable here. Even if you *DO* sign one, such as in a generic "boilerplate" contract with a company that has operations in many states, some of which might enforce such clauses... they are all null and void here.
As a matter of fact, when I signed on to my current job (first job of mine in CA), there was an addendum to my contract explicitly stating all of the above, and declared any such clauses in the main contract to be null and void in accordiance with California law.
Nice to see that SOME states actually give a crap about the people who live and work there. Virginia, OTOH, was, IIRC also one of the first states to enact UCITA. Too bad for Nullsoft that they neglected to think of things like this when they sold out to AOL.
You won't see me setting foot in a festering backwoods hellhole like VA with neanderthal laws like they have there, much less living or working in the place.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
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