Slashdot Mirror
Apple's Bonjour Available for Windows
inblosam writes "Apple's Bonjour ('also known as zero-configuration networking, enables automatic discovery of computers, devices, and services on IP networks') is now available for Windows! A Bonjour icon shows up in Internet Explorer to enable Bonjour browsing, along with the Bonjour Printer Wizard. Developers can download the Bonjour SDK. The benefits would appear to be for Apple customers (more Bonjouring with more networks) and to gain Apple switchers by enticing Windows customers."
The americans will rename this to Freedom Discoverer anyway.
The name. Apple got sued by Tibco about the Rendezvous trademark, so they changed the name to "Bonjour".
A pride of lions.
A gaggle of geese.
A murder of crows.
A vista of bugs.
the fact you can't see it and don't know much about it means that its doing its job.
zeroconf (the IEEE name for bonjour, which is just an implementation of the standard, Apple-extended...) means zero configuration. the user doesn't need to know how to connect to a device, she just uses it.
this is one of those technology's which, if used properly, won't get much notice. its not supposed to.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I find it interesting that totally generic french words can be held as being relatively strong trademarks in the US.
Granted, the Rendezvous complain had a certain basis, but it's funny to me that anyone would call their technology "Good Day" (litteral translation of Bonjour) (or "Meeting" for that matter) and expect to have a strong mark.
What is it with French being hip? I though the statue of Liberty was destined for the scrapyard and that everything french was suspicious.
What happens in the evenings?!
And what about Linux?
Or is it just assumed "Zero configuration" and "linux" are inherently incompatible concepts
Sure: Bonjour works. Any more questions?
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Apple does know that there are other browsers on Windows platforms other than MSIE, right?
I'm sure it probably works fine with Opera, Firefox, etc, but why talk about "the Internet Explorer plugin"?
And if by some chance it doesn't work with non-Microsoft browsers then what the hell is Apple thinking about? Surely further tying users to Microsoft and Microsoft's way of thinking is contrary to Apple's long-term goals?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
KDE added support with 3.4, for example the public file server advertises itself over zeroconf (same protocol, different name). So this is starting to look like a good technology for those in a heterogenous environment
I am trolling
Here's a good comparison of UPnP and Zeroconf. Zeroconf is the base of Apple's Bonjour.
Note that I am far more familiar with ZeroConf than with UPnP, so I may have miss-characterised UPnP in this post.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Does this mean that Xgrid may also hit the Windows side of the moon?
I don't have too much knowledge of the nuts and bolts of Xgrid, but ZeroConf networking seems to me the first step to porting it on Windows. After all, it is not too much different than distributed number crunching projects (e.g. SETI@Home), or is it?
Apple wont be doing that ,The clone macs caused apple alot of problems mostly related to the fact that it cut proffits by brobdignagian ammounts.
Quite simply , apple makes a hell of alot more off of hardware and support(not so sure about support though) than they do off of software so it would not be in their best intrests.
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
It made me very happy to find that Linux has support for it and that even better support is under way. http://dot.kde.org/1114696139/
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
From TFA:
Now anyone using a Windows PC can take advantage of the effortlessness of Bonjour for free. The Bonjour Setup Wizard makes setting up a printer under Windows as easy as Mac OS X (we can't make it as beautiful, unfortunately).
Cool.
Ydco co
Au revoir?
..since all networked HP printers built in the last few years have Bonjour support built in to the JetDirect software.
ZeroConf is the official name, Apples used to use Rendezvous, now it's Bonjour.
You won't have seen it advertised explicitly, it simply sits and works.
It is used for sharing in the iApps:
iTunes
iPhoto
chatting in iChat
Finding servers to use in the Server Admin tools,
Transmit (the Panic FTP client) supports it,
It is used to find file shares on the network, using AFP
Anywhere networking just happens, without having to do anything more than simply turn it on chances are Bonjour is behind it.
Alex
Bonjour has invoked an illegal operation and will be shutdown. Windows needs to be rebooted.
Au revoir!
Actually, zeroconf is more than service discovery.
zeroconf consists of:
- automatic allocation of IP address without DHCP
- name resolving without a central DNS server
- service discovery without a central directory service
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
There are many printers now that work with this technology. It's actually pretty good stuff. I am surprised that this was not already in Windows. Apple usually isn't the type to just release free software for a platform other than theirs, unless of course something is in it for them. Possibly wider ZeroConf adoption in devices? Possible another pc compatible device that apple wants to release, but requires this?
Why, in this day and age, is it necessary to 'restart' the whole friggin machine?
/user:administrator".
It's necessary when you're trying to change a file that's currently in memory. But the windows installer framework, for several years now, gives you the chance to shut down applications using locked files so you don't have to reboot. You can refuse and you'll have to reboot.
In this case I can't imagine it needs a reboot; it's probably hooking something into IE or explorer, or maybe installing a device driver or service - they're probably skimping on testing by only supporting service start-up on reboot, it's cleaner environment to work from. Even if they're hooking something deep into the IP stack they could easily restart all networking on the machine.
Is there a multi-user version of windows yet? Why do I have to log out as 'user' before I can log on as 'administrator'?
Yes, Windows XP lets you switch between users and separate desktops unless it's attached to a domain. But you can only be one user at once, and remote-desktopping in (XP Pro only) kicks off the console user.
You can always use "runas
Just tried Bonjour on Windows, and it automatically detected our two network printers : one's an HP LaserJet 3030 (with a network box) and the other is a Lexmark C510N. I'm really glad I can at last uninstall all the crap that comes with the drivers to make them work... And I won't have to define network ports that crash or fail to detect network names again! Nobody will come ever again to tell me "the printer doesn't work"... I'll switch all our computers to Bonjour as soon as I can. Thanks Apple.
On my Mac, I can can browse bonjour sites on my local network in Safari. What is really cool is that my TiVo shows up. If you have the latest TiVo software (the version that added support for TiVoToGo) You can actually browse and download the .tivo files without using TiVo Desktop. If you are already doing this by http://ip/ you may like that bonjour makes it so you don't need to know the IP address, you just bookmark the *.local address. I assume that this also works with bonjour for windows. It's very useful.
It's spelled "Rendezvous".
No. It used to be spelled "Rendezvous". Now it's spelled "Bonjour".
I've run into a few bugs with Bonjour:
I keep getting IM coupons for French Roast Coffee.
When I play German music on iTunes, all the Bonjour connections surrender and vanish.
QuickTime unexpectedly opens a connection and begins playing Jerry Lewis films.
iTunes insists that I listen to European Jazz Internet Radio at least once a day.
And Bonjour works best only in trendy art café hot-spots while the end user smokes clove cigarettes.
I'm sure Apple will correct these issues when they update OS X 'Tiger'
to
OS X 'La petite femme'.
The source code of Bonjour has been available since August 2002, including implementations for BSD and Linux.
o ur /
http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/bonj
Bonjour Source Code
The Mac OS X mDNSResponder source code is available from the Darwin CVS repository. This package includes platform specific code for implementing Bonjour on Mac OS X, Windows, Windows CE, Linux and VxWorks, and also includes helper applications for browsing and advertising services. Hardware device manufacturers are encouraged to embed the Darwin open source mDNSResponder code directly into their products.
This is some of the coolest use of the technology: SubEthaEdit lets a group of people work on a document at the same time using Bonjour. This is the way networking should work. If the boys there get their act together and create a Windows (and Linux) version, this app could be used everywhere!
After the meal, over a delightful little bottle of 1992 Pinot Grigiot, he leaned over and said to me in a conspiratorial tone, "Hermann, for that is your true name, why do you insist on stalking me, you pompous delusional fuckwit? We're not having lunch; rather you have just prostrated yourself on the ground in front of me in an attempt to slather on my boots. As an intern in accounts receivable, you have no more right to use the royal "we" than a cockroach. Begone filth".
Jobs has a way of being tangential, elusive, not saying what he really means. I recall, back when we founded Apple in my garage in 1976, etc etc ...
The APSL gives you an automatic royalty-free license to any Apple patents which might cover any of the code, too.
I throw 20 people and their laptops into a room. With zeroconf they all automatically notice each other, sort out what IPs they're each going to use, offer their printers to each other (as defined by policy), and magically become a network of machines.
In dumb speak, it just works. DHCP is much better for an organised network, this is much better for an ad-hoc one.
jh
Seems to me that this technology has been available on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD for quite some time now in the form of Howl. It's an opensource library that supports Rendezvous/Zero Conf. I've used it for a while now to do all sorts of fun stuff. In fact, the responder portion of it even runs on the WRT54G boxes.
The only difference here is that this is the blessed client by Apple.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
I really don't get how someone thinks this will get people to convert to apple. OK, so you port some really great app or function of the apple to windows. Why do I want to leave windows? The function is already on my native OS. It's only after I realize that something is so great isn't available for windows that I would want to switch. apple doesn't have enough market exposure to cause a serious exodus from windows.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
HELLO (Picasa share client)
I wonder if Apple's French language Bonjour download would be called Hello. I hope Google doesn't sue over this one.
Oh wait. Never mind. That might be perceived as evil.
Now accepting PayPal donations!
Because Apple, like MS, understands that 'folks' recognize and appreciate words for software products better than acronyms and abbreviations. Linux types pride themselves on naming software with cryptic more-clever-than-you acronyms. This needlessly turns off 'folks' from migrating to Linux. Windows: Media Player Apple: iTunes Linux: XMMS
"...and yet, I blame society" Duke - Repo Man
Seems to me Apple needs to update the Cocoa frameworks for operations on the modern NT variants (2000/XP).
Seems to me they may already me doing that, what with QT7 being a Cocoa app (and I wouldn't be surprised to find iTunes is not far behind).
Seems to me we may see Apple pushing back into the cross-platform application development arena very soon, as a hook to customers to move off Carbon on the OS X platform...
???
not so much that French is hip, but "something-you're-not" is
my brother tells me the story of when bicycling through belgium, he came across a guy customizing a hod-rod car. on the side were painted the words "sweet girl." when asked, the belgian responded that he wanted something that looked/sounded exotic. A U.S. equivalent might be "cherchez le femme" (or "churchy lafemme" for you Pogo fans...)
I think that it just has to be in a different language. it promotes the need for some one to ask you what it is. makes you feel smart (though possibly only relative to the person asking... (think bad lawyers and latin.)) I suppose it helps that in the U.S. certain languages/accents have come to be hung with certain stereotypes. BBC style British accent=intelligent, French accent=sexy (or stuck-up (or both, for that matter)), Italian=short tempered gangster/lothario. But in all of these cases the primary thing that the accent or the foreign word implies is simply the sense of the exotic.
In the rest of the world, French was/is frequently considered the international language. though with the advent of airtravel, and by necessity international air-traffic control, that has been moving to english for some time. (most computer languages also have their basis in english (keywords and syntax rules for instance.) I find it fairly interesting that ruby, (developed, as far as I know) primarily in Japan, still uses english for the major keywords.)
Finding a name that is not "sue-able" or offensive is a tricky thing. Exxon spent a lot of time and money looking for a new name when Esso was broken up and managed to find that the XX was uncommon or non-existent in all known languages. The fact that Exxon itself eventually became something of an epithet is unrelated, (but pleasantly ironic.)
Rendezvous, at least, had come into relatively common english parlance.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
"What's wrong with DHCP?"
It needs a DHCP server.
This is why MS invented APIPA (automatic private ip addressing), in the 169.254.0.0/16 range, which made its debut with Windows 98. If a network adaptor is set to DHCP but no DHCP server responds, it picks an IP in that range. This allows ad hoc local networks to form.
ZeroConf takes APIPA and adds to it multicast DNS (again, because ad hoc networks don't have DNS servers that they can publish names to). Any machine on the local network can listen to the mDNS requests and respond accordingly; it uses specially formed DNS names to publish services (in a manner broadly equivalent to, but IIRC incompatible with, SRV records).
UPnP uses a different mechanism for service discovery (it uses multicast HTTP instead of multicast DNS). It also goes a step further and allows devices to publish known, standardized interfaces.
ZeroConf lets iTunes search for other local iTunes and share media libraries. IIRC only iTunes knows how to talk to these other iTunes instances, because there's no ZeroConf standard "media library" facility.
UPnP lets *media players* search for other local *media players*. These media players are, as long as they conform to the right interface, mutually compatible; it doesn't matter if a "Media Library" is a SAN or a program like Winamp or WMP or some putative networked iPod or hifi system; it just conforms to a standard "Media Library" interface and can stream files accordingly. Likewise the "Media Renderer"; I can control a Media Renderer without caring about its exact nature (it might be a hifi or a PC or something else entirely).
UPnP works well, and can do everything ZeroConf does and then some; it's probably most widely used for Internet Gateway Devices; you get your nice cheap combined cable modem/router box from Linksys, and Windows can see and recognize the device, allowing it to report on connection status, provide a "built-in" link to the device's management web page, and so on and so forth.
Andrew Kuchling wrote a very nice overview of the Zeroconf technology.
Complete with a pure Python module implementation and some example programs.
but I'd consider it for a "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?".
Isn't it a little early in the morning to be breaking out the Patty LaVelle?
Now I'm going to have the goddamn "Hey sistah, soul sistah..." riff stuck in my head until at least lunchtime.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
But it's pronounced "Throatwarbler Mangrove".
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
Can somebody explain to me what ZeroConf has got over UPnP?
UPnP is patent encumbered. It does not do auto discovery over a network. UPnP works like a piece of crap. On my mac I have a usb printer plugged into another machine or hub. Within seconds of turning it on it is available to every mac on my network with no configuration. I have to manually add it to each windows machine. I can automatically see other users running ichat, itunes, etc. and connect to the services they offer, just by being on the same subnet. Taking a mac to a conference became an amazing thing a few years ago. Imagine being able to chat with everyone else there, automatically, with no configuration or trading of info. imagine being able to listen to a steam from their mp3 player. imagine being able to collaboratively edit a document with no configuration. I do all these things redularly. It it so much more useful than UPnP that the comparison is ludicrous.
Rendezvous/Bonjour makes TCP/IP as automatic as AppleTalk was; that's what they "copied," if anything. Mac users were used to automatic service discovery, printer sharing and so on, without worrying about whether or not TCP/IP was manually configured, using DHCP, and so on... (and on...)
Bonjour does for TCP/IP what AppleTalk did for Mac networking years ago.
Because Bonjour is Apple and UPnP is Microsoft. Therefore, one works right and one doesn't.
It has nothing to do with them being French -- consider the trademark on "Windows", for instance.
Word!