AgentOrange
June 21st, 2005, 02:29 PM
If I where a “software patent” or IP owner like Microsoft I’d be pretty upset about BitTorrent as well. Microsoft has said that piracy was its greatest enemy. Trying desperately to shut down tracker databases and trackers I think is the best option. but thats like trying to pee on a forest fire. With BitTorrent’s new Distributed Hash Table(Supproted by Azrueus and the beta official BT client), it makes stopping bi torrent extreamly diffuclt.
So what does Microsoft do? Try and compete with a p2p application, with a network called Avalanche? Have they gone mad? There is all this talk of Avalanche being so superior to BT:
http://www.theregister.com/2005/06/16/filesharing_microsoft/
I have to agree with the creator of BT that Avalanche is vapor ware. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/bramcohen/20140.html) But I hope to god I am wrong. Why you ask? I would love for a better file sharing protocol! So what if this is designed for “legal” files. If it is better its just going to get ripped off! Look at Divx, its just a rip of Microsoft’s compressed video format. The exact same thing is going to happen here. (new version 6 of divx is amazing, check it out)
Its not like development on BT has stopped either, new sharing algorithms come out with every release, the release of avalanche is just going to fuel that.
So good old competitive Microsoft trying to crush its adversaries is just going to shoot its self in the foot. You can’t stop p2p. You can try, but the internet conforms to a least common denominator of the legal system (Read: chaos). I mean if china doesn’t have intellectual property rights, then you can host tracker databases there. With networks like Tor, i2p and Freenet you can’t stop the flow of information. I’m not quite sure how trying to improve upon it is going to stop it… you tell me.
So what does Microsoft do? Try and compete with a p2p application, with a network called Avalanche? Have they gone mad? There is all this talk of Avalanche being so superior to BT:
http://www.theregister.com/2005/06/16/filesharing_microsoft/
I have to agree with the creator of BT that Avalanche is vapor ware. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/bramcohen/20140.html) But I hope to god I am wrong. Why you ask? I would love for a better file sharing protocol! So what if this is designed for “legal” files. If it is better its just going to get ripped off! Look at Divx, its just a rip of Microsoft’s compressed video format. The exact same thing is going to happen here. (new version 6 of divx is amazing, check it out)
Its not like development on BT has stopped either, new sharing algorithms come out with every release, the release of avalanche is just going to fuel that.
So good old competitive Microsoft trying to crush its adversaries is just going to shoot its self in the foot. You can’t stop p2p. You can try, but the internet conforms to a least common denominator of the legal system (Read: chaos). I mean if china doesn’t have intellectual property rights, then you can host tracker databases there. With networks like Tor, i2p and Freenet you can’t stop the flow of information. I’m not quite sure how trying to improve upon it is going to stop it… you tell me.