Microsoft shuts down Vista torrent tracker

Pirillo gets a nice letter from Redmond

My question is: does the Windows User community care, either way? Should we have even bothered to do it in the first place?

I don’t think that is the important question. The important question is why should users bear the cost of distributing software in Bittorrent land? Let us examine the issue in a bit more detailed manner.

1) Big Cos want to use BT because it does not want to pay for distributing its own dog food.
2) Users pick up the tab by seeding/distributing the torrent.
3) Big Cos bill you the same amount of money for the software, regardless of how much you’ve seeded the torrent.

End result: The company saves money, you save exactly what?

Obviously, the story is not applicable to what Microsoft has done. The funny letter was expected since I can’t see how any legal department would give its blessing to a means of distribution, with our without the MD5 checksums, over which it has no control at all.

Yes, there is a market for BT, but not for big commercial entities who will only see its promise in bandwidth/cost savings. It belongs more in the open source and piracy domains — both being cases where you can’t quite charge the users directly for the services provided.

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