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It would be nice to have the Suites and larger apps like OpenOffice available as a torrent. At times I have gotten multiple failed downloads using a DSL or Cable internet connections.
OpenOffice.org makes their software available this way and it works great.
Paul
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Ubuntu makes their LiveCD's available this way, too, and I believe most other Linux distros do the same.
Definitely an interesting idea, but the question of "what happens when some malicious idiot decides to pass a virus around?" is still there. (Although I seem to recall hearing something about BitTorrent including an integrity check? I'm not a BT user, so I wouldn't know)
Also, based on what I know of BT, I believe somebody always has to be sending the file(s), right? How many people would be willing to leave their Internet running 24/7 to send big files like OOo?
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
Yes, considering this is P2P and of course there could be some evil guy, BitTorrent has had integrity checks built from the ground up AFAIK.
[Wikipedia]
Money is essentially the only resource I am not able to give to this site (well...cold hard labor, physical publicization, etc. too), and I'd be happy to seed it while I have access to the computer.
Insert original signature here with Greasemonkey Script.
https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/downthemall_extension
This is a true download accelerator, and has proved more reliable (for me) than straight download.
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
I use DTA for all my downloading; the download speeds are much faster than they normally are, and they're more reliable as well.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
and, essentially, it's not going to happen.
The main reason cited in the past has always been that it is essential to John to track accurate numbers of downloads for the apps, which it is utterly not possible to do with P2P distribution models.
The reason he needs to track the numbers is because it directly impacts on his negotiations with 3rd party sponsors, investors, etc., and his efforts to make this entire project pay for itself.
The monthly bill for all of this hosting (not to mention the time he puts into development) is.... really not small, and JTH has pumped a lot of that in from his own pocket. (almost) Anything that helps him get some of that back is just fine by me, but P2P would sadly hurt that effort.
I hadn't really thought about that aspect of it. I'm almost afraid to suggest it but that rather begs the question of should the suite have anonymous usage statistics built into it? (optional of course). the P2P is a good filing sharing model, seems a shame that it can't be utilized.
With BitTorrent you could track how many times the .torrent is downloaded. BT isn't like Gnutella; you don't search the network, you first have to download a small .torrent file which tells the client all the details it needs to know to get the file. The .torrent is a traditional download, and PA.c could easily track downloads of it.
As for the issue of "Well, people can just post the .torrent elsewhere and then we couldn't track that"--well, that's the same issue with any download. People can post the .paf.exe's anywhere they wanted to too, and we can't track those either.
Also I would think download counts wouldn't be very helpful in negotiations; they can easily be spoofed. "Oh, I've had 1 million downloads since I released this app yesterday!". Sure, the download counter might say that, but how can anyone trust that the webmaster didn't just go into the counter file and change the value? I mean, unless SourceForge is doing the counting and not PA.c itself?
PortableApps.com uses Rackspace, and when I asked them about their rates, they said that their hosting starts at $150 per month, which is pretty steep (majority of premium packages on normal hosts max out at about $20 per month).
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We have a beefy dedicated server at Rackspace (dual dual-core processors, 8GB of RAM, RAID5 SCSI disc array, etc) which serves up the site but not the downloads. The biggest cost is bandwidth, but we currently serve up all our open source apps via SourceForge. This hits around 40TB a month which would be around $20k a month at RackSpace's bandwidth rates. Our freeware is hosted either by the publisher or in the RackSpace cloud, which has a lower bandwidth rate than our dedicated box.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
That would explain why my site was so slow when I used Drupal on comphost...
What kind of bandwidth costs are there?
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Since downloads of the torrent file ARE trackable and would be able to be added to the count, why wouldn't it be a bad idea?
There are already individuals that have torrents of the Suites AND the entire catalog of files but they are now outdated. Having a torrent at the source would be better (and trackable).
Did the 6+ attempts that I made to download the full suite the last time I needed it each get counted as a download?
Paul
As I understand it, it's not just tracking John would sacrifice by utilizing BitTorrent (and that argument alone doesn't hold much water) it's control. As it presently stands, if you get an app from PortableApps.com, you KNOW it's from PortableApps.com. (Well, OK, it's from SourceForge, but still...) BitTorrent (also FileHippo; freeware download sites have been suggested as well) doesn't carry that confidence.
I do not believe that there is anything stopping any one of us from torrenting PortableApps. Legally, anyway. Not sure John would approve, but the open source license most likely allows it. (The only reason I can't say for certain is that PortableApps.com's name and logo are trademarked, that makes things tricky. It's like free music, just because the artist gives it away via their MySpace or whatever doesn't mean you can share it on your own site.) But if someone genuinely had problems downloading OpenOffice and someone else torrented it to them, I don't see a problem. It is very trivial to do this using uTorrent.
Someone would have to start the seeding... and that someone would have to leave their internet going atleast until a few other RELIABLE seeders come on...
iLike Macs, iPwn, However you put it... Apple is better ^_^
"Claiming that your operating system is the best in the world because more people use it is like saying McDonalds makes the best food in the world..."
The actual seeding is the least of the worries. I upload at around 50kB/sec on my home DSL connection, so I could fully seed OpenOffice in a couple hours, tops.
But unless the torrent is constantly being downloaded you need a permanent seeder otherwise the torrent will die. Granted, I don't think it would be too hard to find a dedicated computer/bandwidth to allocate seeding to.
My Internet connection is pretty darn slow, but I'd be happy to break my standard anti-torrent policy, get uTorrent and leave it running 24/7.
There are two problems now.
The first is bandwidth; the second is a certain pain-in-the-backside U.S. law that says people from certain countries can't download apps with encryption - I don't believe you can ban users based on country from BitTorrent, which means PA would almost certainly engage in "illegal" activities sooner or later. That, IMHO, is going to kill this whole idea.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
[Fixed your HTML - mod Chris]