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Locutus Preview Released

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the borg-nanoprobes dept.

An anonymous reader writes "FreeNet's Ian Clarke has released the preview version of his latest P2P endeavor Locutus. Aimed at the corporate world, Locutus adds encryption to the mix - new for a P2P client - to secure files traded across the network as well as the ability to scan within text files to improve search results. Locutus Lite is the free version for those who are more concerned with trading movies and tunes. Locutus Enterprise is the pay version that Clarke hopes to lure corporations to shell out money for (for secure trading of research and other documents). Those interested in trying the preview can download it here."

6 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. who would pay for this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, why would anyone buy another application when they already have http and ftp sites, e-mail, etc? Most "research" isn't widely in demand enough to warrant the distribution model of p2p.

  2. Good plan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's the way to guarantee real-world corporate interest, all right - name it after a lame geeky Star Trek reference.

    And not even old series Star Trek that some of the upper management might at least feel nostalgia for.

  3. Microsoft.. by anubi · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I think this is one of the things that peeve me so much about their "improvements"... from the Locutus site mentioned...

    The application is only 400k in size, but many users will notice that the download is over 20MB. This is because Locutus relies on Microsoft's .NET framework, and if a user doesn't have .NET they will automatically download a version of the installer that does.

    Damm!

    Locutus does look nifty though in that the files can be shared encrypted.. I take it that one must pass muster to even look at the filenames though.. otherwise what difference is it from sharing files already encrypted with pgp or similar...

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]

    1. Re:Microsoft.. by MisterFancypants · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Here we are, facing a world where bandwidth is at a premium, and viral infections are running rampant, and we code some application that takes 20 MEGAbytes of loader to transfer a 400K File? C'mon! Is there any common sense left in programming any more?

      Just like the ~20 megabytes you need if you download a Java application. Its called a runtime environment. It consists of the virtual machine that runs .NET code, plus all the APIs/libraries that go along with such. It is a one time download and then you can run any .NET application. Future versions of Windows will have the .NET framework pre-installed.

      All in all you're making a whole lot of noise for nothing. This is absolutely no different than the "bloat" one has to endure to download Perl if one wants to run Perl scripts, Python for Python scripts, or the Java Runtime Environment for Java programs. As with all of those situations it either a one time download, or no worries at all if it is preinstalled in the OS (which will be the case for .NET moving forward). The only difference is this is Microsoft, so you're quick to bash them because you're an ignorant asshole.

  4. What's wrong with other tools? by oingoboingo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Locutus Enterprise is the pay version that Clarke hopes to lure corporations to shell out money for (for secure trading of research and other documents).

    Maybe I'm missing a point somewhere here...what's wrong with centralised file/document servers, or groupware like Notes, GroupWise or Exchange for sharing documents and research within a company? Why P2P? Will we look back at these stories in a couple of years and think the same way about them as we now do with stories about 'Java applications storming the desktop', 'Push applications redefining the way we work on the net', or 'Debian releases new version before 2025'?

  5. Re:Another 20MB. by gutier · · Score: 5, Informative

    I for one am extremely happy with the .NET framework. It is a comprehensive box of functionality that all .NET applications can make use of. Many useful applications I've written in .NET have been under 200K in size. Comparable programs I've written in Linux are all over 200K in size. This is after having to deal with the incredible mash of libraries that simply don't work well together. Why? Well, how about the amazing number of reimplementations of method pointers, having to deal with C++ libraries and C libraries and woes arising thereof, exceptions in some libraries and return codes in others, all different kinds of naming conventions and the bazillion mappings of this over that.

    I've found that programming in .NET is actually a lot like programming in Python (a nice language and a clean, integrated box of functionality, and NOT like Perl/CPAN with for all the same Linux-related reasons again ... ). Given .NET's intended domain (which is Windows software running on Windows), it is very well done.

    Let's give up the religious dogma, emotional outbursts and reactivity, and evaluate it objectively. Objective evaluation of a complete situation is what they really tried to teach you in college.