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Bram Cohen's Response to Microsoft's Avalanche
An anonymous reader writes "Bram Cohen has reduced Microsoft's proposed file-sharing application--codenamed Avalanche--to vaporware, dubbing its paper on the subject as "complete garbage". "I'd like to clarify that Avalanche is vapourware," Cohen said. "It isn't a product which you can use or test with, it's a bunch of proposed algorithms. There isn't even a fleshed-out network protocol. The 'experiments' they've done are simulations.""
"It isn't a product which you can use or test with, it's a bunch of proposed algorithms. There isn't even a fleshed-out network protocol. The 'experiments' they've done are simulations."
Doesn't all software start off this way?
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
But, yeah, like he said. Avalanche isn't supposed to take over the world. It isn't a product, and it doesn't exist in source code form.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
That's Bram Cohen, author of Bittorrent.
Another pointless article. Troll me, but the fact is that this is addressing something that is behind MS's closed doors.
Ah, you mean like this research paper that Cohen is criticizing.
Or perhaps you are referring to these completely unfounded claims (from TFA):
The developer said Microsoft had completely misunderstood the way BitTorrent operated. The paper quotes "the tit-for-tat approach used in the BitTorrent network" as an inspiration for parts of Avalanche's own operation. Under the approach, a peer-to-peer client will not upload any content to another client unless it has also received a certain amount of content in return.
Cohen said, however, this was a waste of time and had been discarded long ago.
"I can't fathom how they came up with this," he wrote. "Researching either the source code or the documentation on the BitTorrent Web site would have shown that the real choking algorithms work nothing like this."
"Either they just heard 'tit-for-tat' and just made this up, or they for some odd reason dredged up BitTorrent 1.0 and read the source of that." BitTorrent is currently at version 4.0.2.
Cohen went on to say that the 'tit-for-tat' approach was used when BitTorrent was still being developed, but that the first real-world test with only six connected machines showed that it did not work well.
Yup, that's a guy bashing closed doors alright.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
Yeah, I know most of the posts here are bashing Cohen for bashing microsoft (and I was agreeing with them until I decided to RTFA - the summary is not a good one). Bram isn't randomly attacking them for having a vaporware product, he is specifically pointing out the many mistakes that they make in their paper, where they compare Bittorrent to their proposed algorithms. It seems that they made too many mistakes to make their research paper valid, so their simulations are crap... RTFA!
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
So, lay off! :)
You are not the customer.
No, it's not good vapourware according to Bram Cohen. He picks several large holes in the white paper.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I think you're overstating the case. According to the jargon file, vaporware is mere " Products announced far in advance of any release (which may or may not actually take place)", i.e. malicious intent, or even lack of intent to release, is not necessarily implied. Wikipedia elaborates that apart from the cases you describe, it can also be a "test ballon", with the project getting cancelled when there is not enough positive response, or simply the result of too much optimism.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
I just took a look at Cohen's article and he responds exactly to that proposal and elaborates why it does no good and can actually be bad.
RTFA
Try using a legitamite source for BT.. such as bt.etree.org (and i don't care if you think that music sucks)
you will find that the popular torrents on there FLY, and that's because of the mentality of the userbase. they like to share, and don't hop off a torrent right when it's done. there is nothing illegal about it, thus no fear of the man knocking down your door. i've left seeds on there for months.
so.. if you are getting crappy speeds, i'd recommend finding yourself a better group of people to swarm your files with. bashing on BT isn't going to solve your problems, and niether is a piece of vaporware from microsoft
Seeds do not use choking. Choking is used by peers without the complete file on peers that aren't sending them data. Seeds need no data and so do not perform chokes. Last I looked (admittedly an early version) seeds will send to the clients that dl the fastest and will only send to a small number of clients at a time for efficiency reasons.
Super-seeds are completely different (but still don't use choking, although they reward people who received a piece that the super-seed detects has been spread around well by the people who received it).
I can't believe you typed a whole rant about choking without having the slightest clue how it is used, however. You could have spent that time googling and a) learned something and b) not come across as an idiot.
While the paper didn't worry too much about comparing Avalanche to other FEC methods, the comparison seems moot, as server coded FEC methods seem obviously impractical for individuals wanting to seed data from a humble PC. Reliving the seeder of the burden of coding seems an obvious enough differecne that Avalanche and other FEC methods are not nearly as apples to apples as comparing to Bittorrent. (Because Bittorrent is actually practical for Joe Celeron-user to seed right from home.)
Implementation may end up being harder, as it will be a lot harder to combat poisoned blocks in Avalanche. I think the authors were too optimistic about this issue.
argumentum ad fallacium: Fallacy of defining a fallacy which allows one to dismiss the argument in question.