The Uncertain Future of BitTorrent

javipas writes "The people behind the popular BitTorrent tracker are working on a new version of the BitTorrent protocol that could become the successor to the current one, maintained by BitTorrent Inc. The company founded by Bram Cohen — original author of this protocol — now has decided to close the source for several new features in the BitTorrent protocol, and this "gives them too much power and influence". The new file format would be called .p2p, and would maintain backwards compatibility with current .torrent files."

Comments

so?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just keep using the existing protocol. You might miss out on the latest K-Fed release if all the kiddies are using the new format, but then again that could be a plus.

What the Story Submission Should Have Said

[VengefulCynic]

The PirateBay team is currently developing on a new torrent protocol that they hope will be the next-generation successor to the current BitTorrent file. They say that they're concerned about continuing to use the current standard since BitTorrent has closed the source and hope to be able to create an open-source successor that maintains backward-compatibility with the current .torrent standard. The new standard, currently named .p2p is still in the development phase, but the initial release is planned for sometime early next year. Among the planned new features are responses to the increasing number of spammers and anti-piracy organizations who currently abuse the BitTorrent protocol. Seriously, would it have been that hard to have waited for a submission that was informative and grammatically correct?

Re:Meanwhile, .FLV yawns, streams another video

[dave420]

When you want random-access to a file, streaming doesn't work. That's why BitTorrent is so good. Also, it means you can publish your own content and not have to send it to everyone, just some folks. Once it's out there, if it's popular, other folks can download it from others, saving you thousands in bandwidth costs. FLV is just a video codec - it's being served over HTTP, which is ages-old and not particularly suited for mass-dissemination of data in a bandwidth-effective way, anyway. FLV might be good for low-quality videos, but it sure ain't good for gigs of ISOs, DVD-quality movies, albums, libraries of pictures, etc. It's all about using the right tool for the job, and FLV is great at streaming low-quality videos to users at great expense to the server.

Re:Shooting themself in the foot

[Ginger Unicorn]

except cohen bought utorrent and adopted it as the official client. a lot of windows users use utorrent, so that argument doesnt really stand.

Re:Au contraire contraire

[click2005]

Manufacturers do not assume liability if their product is used to perform illegal activities.

That has never stopped the media companies from going after software that enables copyright infringement.

Re:Oh well,

[deathy_epl ccs]

Hell, I think modern piracy would've taken longer to come to their attention if the dumbshits at Napster hadn't tried to make a business model out of it.

And well before warez, there was pirate radio.

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Which similarly never killed anyone, although some of the more famous stations DID broadcast from ships in international waters...

Re:And well before warez, there was pirate radio.

[mikael]

... whose DJ's then became famous DJ's for legitimate stations.

The earliest pirate radio station in the UK was actually by the Daily Mail:


Ceto - The Ceto was a steam yacht reportedly renamed "Broadcasting Yacht" and fitted out for radio broadcasting purposes in 1928. Starting from off the coast of Dundee, Scotland, 'Daily Mail Radio/Radio Daily Mail' (Reports vary) broadcast easy listening music to various points around the British coast as it cruised around the nation's coastline. The sole sponsors of this voyage were Britain's Daily Mail, Evening News, and Sunday Dispatch newspapers, and the intent was apparently not to set up an offshore station but rather to publicise the papers. The brain behind this publicity stunt was Valentine Smith, the Daily Mail's publicity officer.

Freenet is NOT what you're looking for...

[Spy der Mann]

Do you know something I don't?

Aw, poor Alice! She's so clueless and disappointed because she hasn't found Wonderland... yet ;-)

Yes, Alice, I do know something you don't. Freenet is for posting stuff, but there are OTHER similar (anonymous) networks around... some haven't made it to the public, and some are still in beta (but already working imho). They implement onion routing, and are very secure. Some are used for file transfer, others for general purpose (to host websites, forums, etc). Yes, they work.
Just search for the rabbit hole (hint: Steganographed text inside), Alice. Just keep it secret until the time comes.

Re:Oh well,

[Anonymous Coward]

The official client is now based on utorrent, which is written in C++, not Python.