piglop Posted January 26, 2013 Report Share Posted January 26, 2013 Will the softwares be open source ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MicEdwards Posted January 27, 2013 Report Share Posted January 27, 2013 Yes ... good question ... I think we'd all like to know where BitTorrent sees this going over time. The initial release is amazing, but I'm loathe to commit my testing time and energy to software with an unknown future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunni Posted January 27, 2013 Report Share Posted January 27, 2013 GPL or compatible would be preferrable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
320x200 Posted January 30, 2013 Report Share Posted January 30, 2013 Yes, I just signed for an invite out of curiosity.A BitTorrent based sync solution would be great for many people who are trying to avoid relying on third party "cloud" services. The most advanced are coming up with their own DIY solutions such as using rsync or unison, or look towards bigger web based solutions such as owncloud. At these point, all these approaches have weakness in either their speed, background task efficiency or availability on mobile operating systems. A BitTorrent based sync solution could change this situation dramatically.However, if this project is not free software or open source software, I will no be using it:1. I do not want to trust personal files to proprietary software. Having the files hosted on your own machines instead of thirdparty black boxes is one of the selling point of this project. If the software is proprietary, nothing is solved, the problem is just moved.2. I do not want to set up an infrastructure on a system that has no vision on its community development and maintenance.I sincerely hope this project will be released under a free software license. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harold Feit Posted January 30, 2013 Report Share Posted January 30, 2013 1. I do not want to trust personal files to proprietary software. Having the files hosted on your own machines instead of thirdparty black boxes is one of the selling point of this project. If the software is proprietary, nothing is solved, the problem is just moved.And yet there is still the ability to monitor the traffic from the application using other tools like wireshark. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aurika Posted January 30, 2013 Report Share Posted January 30, 2013 If you encrypt the transferred data - and if i understood it correctly BitTorrent Sync is encrypting the data befor it is being transferred - it still might be difficult to get any usefull data out of the stream. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidak Posted April 19, 2013 Report Share Posted April 19, 2013 i hope this great software will be released unter the GPL or similar license, so security experts can review the code, the community can contribute to the development and everyone can trust the system, that the software don't send all data or logs to BT Inc.of course you have the right to keep the code secret until the final public release, so you can hack around and clean up your code...it would be great if you make a statement on that, so we know how the way is.in case BT Sync will "just" be freeware, i would favor an open source alternative to sync my data! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcantsin Posted April 26, 2013 Report Share Posted April 26, 2013 Yes, indeed. Licensed under GPL would be preferred.Before I install this on my Linux box I would like to review the code.e.g. what information is exchanged with the tracker? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Automatic Coding Posted April 26, 2013 Report Share Posted April 26, 2013 If you encrypt the transferred data - and if i understood it correctly BitTorrent Sync is encrypting the data befor it is being transferred - it still might be difficult to get any usefull data out of the stream.Although, apparently the encryption private key is a fork of the secret, so, if you can access the configuration files and read them (Or inject into memory and read the process's data, possibly, depending on how it stores the data), then you instantly can once again read the transmitted data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Padrian_Eaterson Posted May 1, 2013 Report Share Posted May 1, 2013 So what is the license? I'm not seeing any clear information either on the website or even when I run the software on my computer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glubbdrubb Posted July 17, 2013 Report Share Posted July 17, 2013 Can we get an update on this subject. How is the software licensed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatMarko Posted July 17, 2013 Report Share Posted July 17, 2013 Please refer to BitTorrent's general Terms of Use, specifically Section 4b, which states:4. Use of softwareb. If no license agreement accompanies the Software, use of the Software will be governed by the terms of this Section 4b. BitTorrent grants you a personal, worldwide, freely revocable, limited, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, royalty-free, non-assignable, nonexclusive license to use the Software for personal, non-commercial purposes in the manner permitted by the Terms. You agree that you will not decompile, reverse engineer or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of or distribute the Software. Notwithstanding the foregoing, decompiling the Software is permitted to the extent the laws of the jurisdiction where you are located give you the right to do so to obtain information necessary to render the Software interoperable with other software, provided, however, that you must first request the information from BitTorrent and BitTorrent may, in its discretion, either provide such information to you or impose reasonable conditions, including reasonable fees, on use of the Software to ensure that BitTorrent’s Intellectual Property Rights in the Software are protected. You may not assign (or grant a sublicense of) your rights to use the Software, grant a security interest in or over your rights to use the Software, or otherwise transfer any part of your rights to use the Software. For clarity, your use of the Software is also subject to the disclaimers and limitations in Sections 13 and 15 below and your compliance with the export control provisions of Section 18. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glubbdrubb Posted July 17, 2013 Report Share Posted July 17, 2013 So then it's confirmed that we won't be seeing any source code for a security product that's supposed to ensure privacy? That's a pity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatMarko Posted July 17, 2013 Report Share Posted July 17, 2013 So then it's confirmed that we won't be seeing any source code for a security product that's supposed to ensure privacy? That's a pity.There's plenty of discussion around this topic around the forums, including this thread.Also please see "Is BitTorrent Sync Open Source?" in the Unofficial FAQ as there have been hints at Sync possibly going open source in the future.But as it stands at present, BitTorrent Sync isn't open source. If users feel that no software can be "secure" or "trusted" unless it's open source, the bottom line is, no-one's forcing them to use Sync! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Limes102 Posted July 17, 2013 Report Share Posted July 17, 2013 But as it stands at present, BitTorrent Sync isn't open source. If users feel that no software can be "secure" or "trusted" unless it's open source, the bottom line is, no-one's forcing them to use Sync! I don't think this is particularly fair to say - Sure, we are not being forced to use btsync, but it is an excellent piece of software. It should be taken as a compliment that the users want it to be open sourced.Feeling that it is insecure or not to be trusted just because it is closed source is also not fair to say, but I can see why people might think that. I imagine most people want it under GPL so that they can improve it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disappointed Cat Posted July 17, 2013 Report Share Posted July 17, 2013 The devs could release the source code but not license it under a free license like GPL. Kind of like what the Truecrypt team did. This would allow for vetting and making builds for any architecture with the copyright that they're comfortable with. Anyway, the app is only fresh out of alpha so it's too early. If it were me, I wouldn't release it. Yet.Also keep in mind that open-source is only as trustworthy as the people making and reviewing it; and even if the code is perfect most people won't compile it from source so they'll be exposed to all kinds of fraud.On more thing: No matter how secure the app is the weekest link is always the human factor and poorly setup systems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deux Posted July 18, 2013 Report Share Posted July 18, 2013 A pity because the licensing of this application goes against its very nature -- decentralization, distributed.The reason why BitTorrent Inc licensed it under proprietary is simply because they want to profit from it. They want no competitor forking similar product. They are a company, it would be stupid for a for-profit organization to give something for free without anything in return. Plain and simple. BitTorrent Inc have never released any open source software. So they said they "might" open source it? No, they wont. It's for press.But no worries. The idea itself is simple. Just be patient and wait for someone to code a geniune community-driven BitTorrent Sync program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qcbqoucq Posted July 18, 2013 Report Share Posted July 18, 2013 The reason why BitTorrent Inc licensed it under proprietary is simply because they want to profit from it. They want no competitor forking similar product. They are a company, it would be stupid for a for-profit organization to give something for free without anything in return. Plain and simple. BitTorrent Inc have never released any open source software. So they said they "might" open source it? No, they wont. It's for press.not necessarily true! if a good open source btsync alternative shows up people could just drop btsync. if i was a btsync developer i'd make it open source or at least open up the btsync protocol. but - not yet! only with the first stable version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatMarko Posted July 18, 2013 Report Share Posted July 18, 2013 They are a company, it would be stupid for a for-profit organization to give something for free without anything in return. Plain and simple.Please read "Will BitTorrent Sync remain free, or will they start charging for it once it comes out of beta?" in the Unofficial FAQ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deux Posted July 18, 2013 Report Share Posted July 18, 2013 Please read "Will BitTorrent Sync remain free, or will they start charging for it once it comes out of beta?" in the Unofficial FAQAnd if Obama says NSA doesn't spy on Americans, would you also believe that? You seem to misunderstand something. All rights currently belong to BitTorrent Inc. because it is not under open source license. As a person who uses this for their private data, you should be looking at every possiblity of being "the product"; if you are not paying for it, you are the product. Who knows what kind of backdoors this thing could have. I was actually surprised that they were collecting some info like the sizes of data being synced.not necessarily true! if a good open source btsync alternative shows up people could just drop btsync. if i was a btsync developer i'd make it open source or at least open up the btsync protocol. but - not yet! only with the first stable version.You just said how competition works. That's right. People would just switch over to the better alternative. That is exactly why this is not open source, they want no alternative. They don't want people to fork it and code a better one. If it's just updates you're concern, one can just add notification if they were running an old version, or even add auto-update capabilities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
handle Posted July 18, 2013 Report Share Posted July 18, 2013 As a person who uses this for their private data, you should be looking at every possiblity of being "the product"; if you are not paying for it, you are the product.This is probably one of the most parroted things I've heard in recent history. Just because something is free does not mean you are the product.It indeed sucks that this is not released as open source, but that's most likely because this is built off a uTorrent codebase, which likely has proprietary portions they are not allowed to release.I'm not discounting the possibility that you may be the product in this case, however jumping to it immediately without considering anything else is plain conspiracy talk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatMarko Posted July 18, 2013 Report Share Posted July 18, 2013 And if Obama says NSA doesn't spy on Americans, would you also believe that? You seem to misunderstand something. All rights currently belong to BitTorrent Inc. because it is not under open source license. As a person who uses this for their private data, you should be looking at every possiblity of being "the product"; if you are not paying for it, you are the product. Who knows what kind of backdoors this thing could have. I was actually surprised that they were collecting some info like the sizes of data being synced.If you don't like/accept the Terms of Use for BitTorrent Sync - which you agree to if you use the software - then don't use the software! - it really is that simple! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deux Posted July 18, 2013 Report Share Posted July 18, 2013 This is probably one of the most parroted things I've heard in recent history. Just because something is free does not mean you are the product.It indeed sucks that this is not released as open source, but that's most likely because this is built off a uTorrent codebase, which likely has proprietary portions they are not allowed to release.I'm not discounting the possibility that you may be the product in this case, however jumping to it immediately without considering anything else is plain conspiracy talk.It's a pretty reasonable thought if you ask me. This is a product from a company that is willing to include adwares to their "free" software to generate revenue. I am not saying it's wrong. It is perfectly fine because they need to make money.If you don't like/accept the Terms of Use for BitTorrent Sync - which you agree to if you use the software - then don't use the software! - it really is that simple!Thank you for making it simple. And thank you for giving me motivation to code similar work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracyanne Posted July 19, 2013 Report Share Posted July 19, 2013 Thank you BitTorrent Sync Alpha Tester, since I can reasonably assume you work for the company, I now have all the information i need. This application is Closed Source Proprietary, which means there will never be a chance that i can 1) be sure it has been vetted by Open Source Developers I trust 2) compiled by the Distribution developers I trust 3) available under a Free Software License, so that developers I have learned to trust can improve it.I am actually very happy to pay good money for Open Source Software. I used to Buy the paid for version of Mandrake (Mandriva), in fact the first version of linux I ever used was a commercial distribution. I donate to other open source (Free Software) projects, and encourage other people to do so. But No matter how good the developers of a closed source proprietary application tell me their software is, experience (20 years as a Windows developer, before I retired), tells me NEVER trust those assurances, They want to place you in a position where you will have to keep paying and it will always be more expensive to move to the better solution, than it is to put up with the current solution's failings.My recomendation is wait for an OpenSource (Free Software) licensed Bittorrent sync application, or if you can stasrt writing one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btusername Posted July 20, 2013 Report Share Posted July 20, 2013 This is probably one of the most parroted things I've heard in recent history. Just because something is free does not mean you are the product.It indeed sucks that this is not released as open source, but that's most likely because this is built off a uTorrent codebase, which likely has proprietary portions they are not allowed to release.I'm not discounting the possibility that you may be the product in this case, however jumping to it immediately without considering anything else is plain conspiracy talk.to assume we aren't the product would be a leap also. We just don't know, that's the problem.just to confirm no official announcement has been made on syncs licensing right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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