BitTorrent goes closed-source, nobody surprised
Posted by Ray @ 5:14 amBack in December last year there were rumblings that BitTorrent was acquiring the uTorrent project. And why not? After all, uTorrent was more succesful than the mainline client ever was.
It eventually turned out that the purchase was true, and copyfighters everywhere despaired, for of course Bram Cohen, like his predecessor Shawn Fanning, had by that time sold out to the MPAA.
Now they’re turning the project closed-source. That’s right, the version 6 protocol will be closed source, thereby destroying one of the very reasons why the protocol was succesful in the first place - the ability for any developer, anywhere, to make a better product.
So the several million users of uTorrent are going to use an “improved” feature set (I use that word with some doubt), and the several other million users of Azureus, BitComet et al are going to use another. Who wants to bet that part of the v. 6 protocol will include some lame-ass oppressive DRM scheme?
Didn’t think so.
Read the official response and weep.
Sure, you can buy a licence to the protocol. But d’you really think the next big thing is going to come from someone who is pedantic enough to purchase a licence?
Bleah.