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Will OSX Build In Torrenting?
Cjattwood writes "Mac OS rumors has an article describing a possible implementation of a Bittorrent client into Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard", including a unique sharing reward system where the user can share bandwidth and get rewards, such as credit in the iTunes store."
You upload a little and you get infinite download credit for whatever movie you want. Sometimes even before it's out in the stores!
Beep beep.
imagine getting credit for itunes music for torrenting itunes music... what fun.
for a minute there, i lost myself...
RTFA. Traffic would occur on non-standard ports and you wouldn't be able to share anything you wanted. You would donate your bandwidth to share content Apple approved like software updates. It makes perfect sense and I'd certianly donate my bandwith at home when I'm at work in exchange for iTunes credits.
The rumor goes that they will give you credit for uploading their software updates to other people (thereby reducing their bandwith bills); they won't offer you anything for uploading anything else...
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
Perhaps they intend to make torrents a legitimate method of delivery of purchased iTunes songs. So, you purchase an iTunes song, seed it as an 'iTunes torrent.' Then you get some amount of credit for more iTunes songs. Someone else who buys the first song you bought downloads it as a torrent from you (and others).
It's a way for Apple to expand their ability to deliver content without having to drastically upgrade their own network infrastructure. You get a little iTunes store credit for being part of the delivery system.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
Credit for torrenting? Why would Apple give away iTunes music just for people to run torrents? Well, maybe because those torrents will serve up iTunes movies. Dedicated bandwidth has been the greatest obstacle to getting a full iTunes HD movie store (well, that and the movie companies' agreement, but if the tech is there and economical, the content will follow).
I can see Apple doing this for movies since they're so large size-wise. I wouldn't mind using half of my upstream to earn credit at the store. Good way to defray the cost of my internet bill - and since I'm on a comercial account my ISP doesnt say anything about me using a lot of bandwidth.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
I don't think that the legitamate uses of BitTorrent come close to equaling the bandwidth wasted on downloading pr0n, music and the latest blockbuster movies. So why would Apple build this into thier OS? Will it help legitimize BitTorrent? I doubt it. It would be interesting to see them distribute updates via bittorrent though.
I just type my sig in the reply form...
Help us take our hosting cost and we'll help you negate that bill you pay for 30 tasty megabytes of fiber... Yesss...
Personally, this is the best implementation of the BitTorrent technology yet.
$eeding.
> I don't care how many good uses there are, Bit Torrent will always be labeled as a piracy tool.
... it's just a goddamn protocol. WoW uses it for updates, and it's catching on elsewhere. They just won't call it BitTorrent, and it might not even be perfectly compatible. Just call it an "exchange-interlocked pareto-efficiency protocol" or something.
The name, sure. Otherwise
Man, every time RFID or the BT protocol comes up, slashdot gets its collective panties in a wad.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
2. Legal downloads of Linux/BSD CD's.
Somehow I have never seen this as Job's first priority on the list of things to make easy in OS X.
Beep beep.
This sounds like a great thing, since it would make BitTorrent more available for non-techie users and add another vote to the legitimacy of BT.
However, if there's a crediting system, does that mean that Apple is watching your BT usage? If I'm not mistaken, Apple has some interest as a content producer and may not like what they see BT being used for. Is this going to be yet another organization watching what people transfer and ratting them out to the RIAA/MPAA/CIA, or will they be Not Evil (tm) and keep their noses out of people's business?
Beyond that, it's an interesting concept, but one that could seriously botch up torrenting as it is. Bittorrent works so well (with both legal and shady source material) because every user gets the combined benefit of getting what they want, and helping thers who want the same thing to get it. At the very most, a big ratio gets you get bragging rights on some tracker site. My inner folk-song-singing hippie cringes at what result throwing monetary things like iTunes credit into the mix would have.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Except Apple is the one that dictates what it is you'll be sharing. You're simply donating some disk space on your computer and bandwidth. The traffic will also occur on non-standard bit torrent ports so admins can tell the difference between the Apple feature and standard bit torrent traffic.
If we can share the software updates between macs, it would be a good thing. With 3 macs in my house, why should I have to download the updates 3 times? I should be able to get a copy from the mac on my local net that downloaded it first. I just hope they allow the torrent client to have a throttle on it.
Brought to you by Team SPAM! where we believe: "Information in the noise!"
DRM? just curious, I can't imagine that they would let you offer the pirated music and movies and then get itunes credit for it...
I think you're confusing the term upload. They aren't talking about you uploading some data you have to get credit to download other data. They are talking about you authorizing Apple to use your machine as a node in a bit torrent network that distributes data of their choice. Thus you click "yes" and they use your spare upload bandwidth to more cheaply and quickly send software updates, podcasts, iTunes downloads, etc. to other computers. The data is all encrypted and chunked so it is not useful to you at all, even though it is on your hard drive. In excahnge, they give a free itunes song or something every month or year or something.
You win, because you weren't using all your hard drive and bandwidth anyway (and presumably it gives your data precedence). Apple wins because they no longer have to pay as much to distribute iTunes data and software updates. Theoretically, they could even expand this to third party software, cheaply distributing up to date version of any software companies want to give Apple a copy of. Hopefully it would be tied to a full service to keep all your programs updated.
The risks are legally, Apple might have copyright challenges to copying little chinks of encrypted music, even if it is unusable, and the security risk of people masquerading as valid nodes to disrupt the network or try to inject fake data (unlikely unless the implementation is very weak).
People said the same thing about CD burners.
I don't know if P2P built into the OS makes any sense, but certainly it makes sense to build it into iTunes (the application). Some people have claimed that Apple's margin on iTunes content is razor thin. I don't know whether that's true or not, but I certainly know that bandwidth -- when you want the best possible access to your customers, no matter where they are -- doesn't come cheap.
So adding P2P to iTunes could be one area where Apple could improve their margins. I guess the credit system would be a way to secure that people actually kept on sharing their files after they were downloaded/bought from iTunes (the store).
It's an interesting idea (if it's true).
I've seen the OS X roadmap - and just before they run out of names, they merge with Ubuntu for release 10.04 'plentiful pussy' (the most beautiful release) :-D
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I've been referring to the next upcoming release as "American Shorthair" ever since 10.1.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
OS X "Masturbation Casualty"
Um, I'm gonna go with the perenially posted "OS 10.9.6 Liger" - Breed for its skills in stability and GUI magic.
The name "torrent" would scare off the few IT managers willing to play with Apple: they wouldn't dare put anything that even suggests P2P on a company system (their VP may not know what a torrent is, but he's heard the name and thinks it's bad.)
If Apple distributes this and then some sleazy congressman manages to make it illegal, they'll have a big media (if not legal) problem and have to disable high profile system services.
If Apple distributes this, it will poison their relationship with the gangsters who control ITMS content (whether it has any bearing on song sharing or not.)
What possible use is it? Apple owns Akamai. Their updates download faster than just about anyone's. If they use a torrent system it _will_ be slower (end user upload speed), not faster, and someone will sooner or later figure out how to upload trojans in place of updates and really wreck their day.
If Apple wants to hurt themselves, it would be easier and cheaper to just start donating computers to Al Quaeda.
Mac OS Rumors has a long history of being the most uninformed, random Mac rumor site in existence. Its predictions are rarely accurate, and when they are, they have generally been mentioned on another site first.
This is a fairly typical MOSR pipe dream.
Apple does not need my unreliable, low-speed bandwidth. They deliver 100+ MB software updates to thousands of users without blinking. Given that most of their iTMS downloads (music, movies, whatever) are from Windows users, they would see little gain by offering software update credits to Mac users. In fact, for their paltry savings on the cost of bandwidth, they would have an administrative nightmare to face.
I file this one under bullshit.
It's pretty much my favorite operating system.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
No, abusing your monopoly is bad.
If MS did not abuse their monopoly, then no problems would have occurred and no one would have complained.
What MS did, specifically, was to extort Compaq by threatening to withhold OS licenses if they shipped systems with Netscape Navigator as the default and on the desktop.
In other words, if Apple threatened Best Buy and Walmart into stopping sales of competitive MP3 players, or PCs, with their iPod dominance then Apple would be in the same boat.
They don't, so they aren't.
GPL Deconstructed
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The day MOSR becomes a credible source on /. is when not only toasters fly but water flows uphill.
I don't really know what else needs to be said. If the guy who runs MacOS rumors told me the sky is blue, I'd check. What's sad is he used to be reliable. Now he's just a washed up has-been who fabricates stories to drive traffic to his site. He's as reliable as Hussein's old minister of information, Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf.
This may be a little OT, but I'd like to see Apple offer advertisements for download on the iTMS in exchange for store credit. They could make them interactive or something if they want to make sure you watch them. I don't mind commercials, I just mind that they interrupt whatever I'm trying to watch. I'd gladly sit and watch/interact with commercials for 20-30 min if it got me $2-3 to spend on commercial-free TV shows like Lost or The Colbert Report. There's a strange bit of psychology that makes me despise spending $2 out of my pocket for an episode of Lost but be fine with watching 20 minutes of commercials for it, even though my time is worth more than that.
FYI- his name is Steve Jobs, not Steve Job. I'm sure you know that, but clearly you don't understand how apostrophes work. When doing a possessive of a word already ending in s, you put the apostrophe after the s. So you'd say "Jobs' first priority". Some people say you should add an additional s, as in "Jobs's first priority", but we all know that's just silly.
The difference:
:-)
I can delete Safari from any version of Mac OS X it runs on. Can you uninstall Internet Explorer from your current verion of Windows XP?
What I am leading to here is that Apple builds features into Mac OS X, and then creates modular applications that take advantage of them, or allows you to disable these features in the operating system. Plus, other applications built by third party developers can take advantage of the features (such as OmniWeb with WebKit) as well. No one who installs Mac OS X is forced to leave Safari, iChat AV, Mail, iCal, etc installed on their computer. They can delete them and then choose to install Firefox, Thunderbird, Adium, and Sunbird, and there is no penalty to the user.
Again, try doing that to Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, or Microsoft Messenger, without a third party XP hacking tool. You can hide those applications to the user, but can never fully delete them.
If Apple builds torrenting into 10.5, I'm sure there won't be anything that prevents you from running the normal bittorent clients that are already available for your standard pirating needs.
And that, my friend, is the difference between good and evil
Peer Impact's patent on Incentives for p2p
0 05038617&F=0
Here's the Patent
COMPUTER SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ENHANCING THE DISTRIBUTION AND REVENUE STREAMS DERIVED FROM WORKS MADE AVAILABLE IN DIGITAL FORM
Abstract of WO2005038617
Methods and computer systems for increasing the revenue stream from a work made available in digital form are provided. The methods and systems of the invention are particularly useful for musical, video, interactive game files, and artistic or commercial works that can be digitally copied and transferred or distributed, such as via the Internet. Embodiments of the present invention advantageously can form part of a greater system that provides access to digital forms of numerous works or groups of works, such as those that are copyrighted, to thereby extend the revenue-producing capabilities for the copyright holder of digital or digitized works to bona fide purchasers of those works. In turn, bona fide purchasers of a work who later provide copies of that work or other authorized works, or provide transfer or distribution bandwidth with respect to that work or other authorized works may receive incentives. Advantageously, no central warehouse of digital content is necessary with the present methods, and users may introduce authorized content into the present system in a controlled manner, through peer-to-peer systems, while realizing economic incentives for doing so. The present systems and methods also provide a myriad of embodiments of incentive and apportioning payment schedules, configurations and properties.
Data supplied from the esp@cenet database - Worldwide
http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=WO2
Of course, because MS has demonstrated anticompetitive behavior in the past. A link to a similar response to a similar post in this very article thread here!
The gist is: Microsoft threatened Compaq to pull their Windows license if Compaq installed Netscape Navigator. Apple has not done any such thing with their OS, so they aren't under scrutiny.
If you're going to complain about how people treat MS, at least understand WHY people treat MS differently too.
GPL Deconstructed
When NeXT came out every box shipped with ZILLA installed. It was the forerunner of modern screen-saver grid computers. You donated unused cycles to the Zilla organization and they did intersting stuff. In particular they allegedly did much of the four-color map theorem proof on Zilla and some of the early movie CGI work was done on Zilla. Another example of how far ahead NeXT was at the time. (another groovy thing on NeXT was it's early use of Mime and markup formatting for e-mail, something we take for granted now. e.g. all the NeXT e-mail clients had built in voice recording. Neither mac, windows, linux or sun had that at the time. And these days it's not even built in.) The neat thing apple brings to the table here is not the technology to do grid computing like this, but to do micropayments. This has been worked out via the apple stores and even better for them is if they can do barter (itunes) rather than cash. Someday they could do much more than torrent. Maybe they will lease xgrid to say airline companies to do scheduling. You get paid too!
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
If you consider asking a pointed question to be flame bait, then I suppose I'm guilty.
//c, a Mac SE, and own an eMac G4. I'm not anti-Apple. I had to be dragged kicking and screaming from my Apple machines to that damn Mitsubishi built "Leading Edge" clone (the first one, not the Tandy 1000 clone they made later). Today, I have several Linux boxes -- and prefer them for server work hands down, but for workstation work, XP does what I need it to do.
The truth is, if Microsoft enters a niche currently served by freeware/shareware/open source, the assumption is that it is the evil empire out to squash all the little perfect peace-loving Linux and OSX people.
Frankly, I just want to see the same scrutiny applied universally.
Look for a second at Apple. The only reason they're not Microsoft is that they didn't do it well enough 20 years ago. The failed, they didn't "take the high road". Apple is pushed DRM down our throats more successfully than Microsoft. They also found a way to make downloading music workable for the record companies and for most of the customer base (at least for now). Apple's proprietary hardware and planned obsolecense has made upgrading their equipment nearly impossible for decades.
Hell, I had a ][+, a IIe, and a
If Apple builds a BT client into the OS and declares it "Part of the Operating System" because it uses that to obtain its patches, how is that different from Microsoft doing it with IE?
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln