Until today, I used three methods to download BitTorrent files: the command-line client when I’m accessing my Linux machine remotely, the ABC client when I’m on Windows, and, recently, Azureus.

Today, for the first time, I used the official BitTorrent graphical client. It’s nice, but one particular quirk of the interface really stopped me short: when you click the ‘X’ next to a completed torrent, the dialogue asks “Are you sure you want to remove examplefile.avi?”

It’s a minor thing, but the language tripped me up. It didn’t say “remove from queue”, it said remove the file — and the file wasn’t the .torrent, it was the download itself. Logically, I didn’t expect the program to so easily delete what it had just created, but I paused all the same.

Now, this is open source software, so I can dive right in and fix it*. Since BitTorrent uses the MIT License, I could even re-distribute my new “JSP Approved” version of the program.

This is a small example, I know, but it’s refreshing to know that I can choose software that isn’t a one-way street. If I don’t like it, I can (try) to improve it. That’s the power of a little thing we nerds call Freedom 0.

* Changing line 1500 of btdownloadgui.py, if you’re wondering.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 10th, 2005 at 11:52 pm and is filed under Geekery.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.