Xilinx PLEASE FIX YOUR servers (ISE 10.1)

but

eh kids kids (inside of men) they are all impatient :) the problem persisted only a few hours, so it really wasnt a big wait this time until it got fixed.

Antti

Reply to
Antti
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No, that's not what I meant - I use bittorrent regularly myself. When I'm downloading something like a Linux distribution, or even larger apps like OpenOffice, it is my first choice of download method when I am at home. But on our office LAN, bittorrent is blocked (to be more precise, incoming bittorrent ports are blocked, so you can't upload - and download speeds will therefore be terrible if anyone tries it). There is no way I'd open up a port forward through our firewall/NAT router to allow p2p networking here, and UPnP (horror!) is of course not used.

The difference between usage patterns for businesses and home use (or very small offices) is shown by Red Hat - they rely on Bittorrent for Fedora, but not for RHEL.

Reply to
David Brown

Un bel giorno Antti digitò:

Yes, and now they are trying to fix it with some stupid Java applets (probably they are hosting the file somewhere else but don't want the user to see the direct link).

I don't understand why the big companies don't distribute their software with BitTorrent. It would be so nice, fast and easy for everyone. It would especially make sense for Xilinx, that offers a 2 GB software for free, and poses as the friendly neighborhood multinational. ,-)

--
emboliaschizoide.splinder.com
Reply to
dalai lamah

d

I can tell you exactly why they don't use bittorrent, because they want to keep track of who has downloaded their software. They don't want it out there being used by anonymous people that they can't send their sales weasels calling on.

Reply to
mdschulte

No, you still need to register to get a key. Syms.

Reply to
Symon

Why would you download Xilinx software if you were not at least thinking about using Xilinx parts? It's not exactly unreasonable for Xilinx to be interested in who is using their software, and share this information with their sales and marketing people and their distributors - unless their sales people are doing a spectacularly bad job, it is in the customers' interests that they have this information. It is not as if they are cold calling - by using their software, you've already shown your interest in their products.

And anyway, as Symon says, it is the licensing that registers you as a user. If you have several users at the same site, I'm sure Xilinx is happy for you to download a single copy of the software to share.

The reason (I presume) they don't use bittorrent is basically because it would not work for this sort of software. Only a small proportion of users would be interested in using bittorrent downloads in a professional setting, and only a few of these would be allowed by their IT department, and even fewer would leave the torrents running with fast enough upload capacity for other downloaders to see decent download speeds. Add to that the common misunderstandings of bittorrent ("How do we know we are getting the proper software - maybe the file is corrupt, or it's picked up a virus from some sharer's PC?" and "Isn't bittorrent only for (sic) pirated files?") and some ISP's brain-dead anti-bittorrent schemes to cheat users out of their bandwidth, and you get a very poor choice of distribution method for this kind of software.

Reply to
David Brown

Un bel giorno David Brown digitò:

BitTorrent would be an alternative way, not the only way for the download. Then everyone would choose their preferred way, and I bet that at least a half of the users would choose the torrent. Many companies distribute their professional software with either http/ftp and BitTorrent (OpenOffice and most Linux distributions are the first that come to mind).

--
emboliaschizoide.splinder.com
Reply to
dalai lamah

I am a good example of a professional user of OpenOffice and several Linux distributions. Most professional users of this sort of software use it both at home and at work. When downloading at home, I use BitTorrent. It's my bandwidth - if I want to spend my upload bandwidth sharing the torrent with other people, and saving the disto some network bandwidth costs, that's my choice. When downloading at work, I don't - no sane IT manager allows P2P networking on their office LAN, and even if it *were* allowed, no sane IT manager would let their upstream bandwidth fill up with torrent uploads that are not of benefit to the company.

There is the middle area of SOHO users who might use bittorrent even though they are "at work" - on a very small LAN it might be appropriate to allow some controlled P2P. But even there, you'll find very few professional users who are happy to leave the bittorrent uploading for days on end, which is needed to make a positive contribution to such large torrents at typical ADSL speeds.

That's why broad-target Linux distributions like Fedora are available with bittorrent, while strictly professional target distributions like RHEL are not - while some people would try using bittorrent, the rates would be so slow because the philosophy of bittorrent does not work for that kind of software.

Reply to
David Brown

Who are these mythical sane IT managers? :-)

Reply to
Symon

Me :-)

Draconian rules (such as no Internet Exploder allowed, no P2P, no skype, no email that hasn't passed through our virus scanner and exe-file killer mail server, no Vista, and preferably no MS software other than Windows), enforced by threats with wire cutters, are the key to keeping a network secure and reliable with minimal time and effort.

Of course, it's possible that all other IT managers are insane...

Reply to
David Brown

Un bel giorno David Brown digitò:

We use BitTorrent in a controlled, request-based way. Only one PC is allowed to connect in/out to high ports, and only the administrator (and some chosen ones) can run BT and start a download. I think that a lot of small companies do that. Of course for medium and big organizations it can't work, but I repeat - this would be an *additional* option for the download, almost at zero cost, and without any drawback. If you don't want to use it, then don't, and vice versa.

--
emboliaschizoide.splinder.com
Reply to
dalai lamah

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