Apple's Bonjour Available for Windows 550
inblosam writes "Apple's Bonjour ('also known as zero-configuration networking, enables automatic discovery of computers, devices, and services on IP networks') is now available for Windows! A Bonjour icon shows up in Internet Explorer to enable Bonjour browsing, along with the Bonjour Printer Wizard. Developers can download the Bonjour SDK. The benefits would appear to be for Apple customers (more Bonjouring with more networks) and to gain Apple switchers by enticing Windows customers."
Um.. okay (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Um.. okay (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Um.. okay (Score:3, Interesting)
HELLO (Picasa share client) [hello.com]
I wonder if Apple's French language Bonjour download would be called Hello. I hope Google doesn't sue over this one.
Oh wait. Never mind. That might be perceived as evil.
Re:Um.. okay (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Um.. okay (Score:4, Funny)
Isn't it a little early in the morning to be breaking out the Patty LaVelle?
Now I'm going to have the goddamn "Hey sistah, soul sistah..." riff stuck in my head until at least lunchtime.
Re:Um.. okay (Score:4, Informative)
Because Bonjour is Apple and UPnP is Microsoft. Therefore, one works right and one doesn't.
Re:Um.. okay (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Um.. okay (Score:3, Interesting)
Granted, the Rendezvous complain had a certain basis, but it's funny to me that anyone would call their technology "Good Day" (litteral translation of Bonjour) (or "Meeting" for that matter) and expect to have a strong mark.
What is it with French being hip? I though the statue of Liberty was destined for the scrapyard and that everything french was suspicious.
Re:Um.. okay (Score:3, Interesting)
In french we say "c'est simple comme bonjour!", which means everyone can do it, understand it.
Have a look to the Apple page in french (http://www.apple.com/fr/macosx/features/bonjour/ [apple.com]) : "le réseau, simple comme Bonjour".
I thought the "Windows" trademark was revoked? (Score:5, Interesting)
my brother tells me the story of when bicycling through belgium, he came across a guy customizing a hod-rod car. on the side were painted the words "sweet girl." when asked, the belgian responded that he wanted something that looked/sounded exotic. A U.S. equivalent might be "cherchez le femme" (or "churchy lafemme" for you Pogo fans...)
I think that it just has to be in a different language. it promotes the need for some one to ask you what it is. makes you feel smart (though possibly only relative to the person asking... (think bad lawyers and latin.)) I suppose it helps that in the U.S. certain languages/accents have come to be hung with certain stereotypes. BBC style British accent=intelligent, French accent=sexy (or stuck-up (or both, for that matter)), Italian=short tempered gangster/lothario. But in all of these cases the primary thing that the accent or the foreign word implies is simply the sense of the exotic.
In the rest of the world, French was/is frequently considered the international language. though with the advent of airtravel, and by necessity international air-traffic control, that has been moving to english for some time. (most computer languages also have their basis in english (keywords and syntax rules for instance.) I find it fairly interesting that ruby, (developed, as far as I know) primarily in Japan, still uses english for the major keywords.)
Finding a name that is not "sue-able" or offensive is a tricky thing. Exxon spent a lot of time and money looking for a new name when Esso was broken up and managed to find that the XX was uncommon or non-existent in all known languages. The fact that Exxon itself eventually became something of an epithet is unrelated, (but pleasantly ironic.)
Rendezvous, at least, had come into relatively common english parlance.
Re:Um.. okay (Score:5, Funny)
Word!
Bonjour? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Bonjour? (Score:5, Insightful)
zeroconf (the IEEE name for bonjour, which is just an implementation of the standard, Apple-extended...) means zero configuration. the user doesn't need to know how to connect to a device, she just uses it.
this is one of those technology's which, if used properly, won't get much notice. its not supposed to.
Re:Bonjour? (Score:3, Informative)
Complete with a pure Python module implementation [sourceforge.net] and some example programs.
Re:Bonjour? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bonjour? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bon soir (hey, it's night for me),
Re:Bonjour? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bonjour? (Score:4, Funny)
No. It used to be spelled "Rendezvous". Now it's spelled "Bonjour".
Re:Bonjour? (Score:5, Funny)
But it's pronounced "Throatwarbler Mangrove".
Bonjour? No point (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bonjour? No point (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bonjour? No point (Score:5, Funny)
And GWB will call it Discovererer
Alex
Re:Bonjour? No point (Score:4, Funny)
No, no, he will of course call it "Bonjour" - and he will point out the interesting fact, that the french have no word for "Bonjour".
Obligatory Snopes reference (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bonjour? No point (Score:5, Funny)
The americans will rename this to Freedom Discoverer anyway.
And GWB will call it Discovererer
And Al Gore will claim to have invented it.
And Kerry will claim to have supported its creation, then retract.
And FoxNews will tell the world that Bonjour is an attack on our freedom created by the Democrats.
And CNN will claim that Clinton wrote it while he was getting head.
UPnP (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:UPnP (Score:5, Informative)
Re:UPnP (Score:5, Informative)
Note that I am far more familiar with ZeroConf than with UPnP, so I may have miss-characterised UPnP in this post.
Re:UPnP (Score:5, Informative)
zeroconf consists of:
- automatic allocation of IP address without DHCP
- name resolving without a central DNS server
- service discovery without a central directory service
Re:UPnP (Score:5, Interesting)
In dumb speak, it just works. DHCP is much better for an organised network, this is much better for an ad-hoc one.
Re:UPnP (Score:5, Informative)
It needs a DHCP server.
This is why MS invented APIPA (automatic private ip addressing), in the 169.254.0.0/16 range, which made its debut with Windows 98. If a network adaptor is set to DHCP but no DHCP server responds, it picks an IP in that range. This allows ad hoc local networks to form.
ZeroConf takes APIPA and adds to it multicast DNS (again, because ad hoc networks don't have DNS servers that they can publish names to). Any machine on the local network can listen to the mDNS requests and respond accordingly; it uses specially formed DNS names to publish services (in a manner broadly equivalent to, but IIRC incompatible with, SRV records).
UPnP uses a different mechanism for service discovery (it uses multicast HTTP instead of multicast DNS). It also goes a step further and allows devices to publish known, standardized interfaces.
ZeroConf lets iTunes search for other local iTunes and share media libraries. IIRC only iTunes knows how to talk to these other iTunes instances, because there's no ZeroConf standard "media library" facility.
UPnP lets *media players* search for other local *media players*. These media players are, as long as they conform to the right interface, mutually compatible; it doesn't matter if a "Media Library" is a SAN or a program like Winamp or WMP or some putative networked iPod or hifi system; it just conforms to a standard "Media Library" interface and can stream files accordingly. Likewise the "Media Renderer"; I can control a Media Renderer without caring about its exact nature (it might be a hifi or a PC or something else entirely).
UPnP works well, and can do everything ZeroConf does and then some; it's probably most widely used for Internet Gateway Devices; you get your nice cheap combined cable modem/router box from Linksys, and Windows can see and recognize the device, allowing it to report on connection status, provide a "built-in" link to the device's management web page, and so on and so forth.
Re:UPnP (Score:3, Funny)
Re:UPnP (Score:3, Informative)
Bonjour is light weight, uses smaller packets, and does not define any device types
UPnP uses XML and http, so it is more complex. It defines device types.
Bonjour was created and supported by apple around 2001.
UPnP has been around longer since 1999.
Personally it looks like Apple copied UPnP to create Bonjour.
Re:UPnP (Score:3, Insightful)
Rendezvous/Bonjour makes TCP/IP as automatic as AppleTalk was; that's what they "copied," if anything. Mac users were used to automatic service discovery, printer sharing and so on, without worrying about whether or not TCP/IP was manually configured, using DHCP, and so on... (and on...)
Bonjour does for TCP/IP what AppleTalk did for Mac networking years ago.
Bonjour is kinda cool... (Score:2, Informative)
Or when you are sitting in a network, open itunes. suddenly all the peoples that share there music with itunes pops up in the playlist. So you can play there songs...
Uh oh... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Uh oh... (Score:5, Funny)
Okay (Score:5, Funny)
Or is it just assumed "Zero configuration" and "linux" are inherently incompatible concepts
Re:Okay (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Okay (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Okay (Score:4, Informative)
Except it's under Apple's APSL, which isn't DFSG free. KDE uses it anyway, but I assume Debian strips it out before packaging it. Avahi [freedesktop.org] is a GPL'd implementation of zeroconf, and AFAIK Gnome is waiting for it to mature before integrating it. The web page has a progress update added today.
Re:Okay (Score:4, Informative)
The mDNSResponder daemon remains under the terms of the APSL, which is not only OSI-approved but also accepted by RMS himself as being a valid Free Software license. The only problem he noted with it was that it is GPL-incompatible - but since the client library for Bonjour is GPL-compatible that shouldn't be a problem.
To be honest, I'd be surprised if the APSL is not DFSG free. On what grounds is it not?
Re:Okay (Score:4, Informative)
"The Apple Public Source License (APSL) version 2.0 qualifies as a free software license. Apple's lawyers worked with the FSF to produce a license that would qualify.
* It is not a true copyleft, because it allows linking with other
files which may be entirely proprietary.
* It is incompatible with the GPL."
Debian-legal has reviewed the APSL 2.0, in http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/08/msg0
Re:Okay (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Okay (Score:3, Insightful)
WTF? An "MSIE" plug-in? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure it probably works fine with Opera, Firefox, etc, but why talk about "the Internet Explorer plugin" [apple.com]?
And if by some chance it doesn't work with non-Microsoft browsers then what the hell is Apple thinking about? Surely further tying users to Microsoft and Microsoft's way of thinking is contrary to Apple's long-term goals?
Re:WTF? An "MSIE" plug-in? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:WTF? An "MSIE" plug-in? (Score:3, Insightful)
> Opera and Mozilla are not file managers, thus they do not need a plugin to browse available printers etc on the LAN
But, wouldn't they benefit from a plugin for something like this (from TFWebsite) ?
If that is what I think it is, it seems very cool, no more remembering that the CUPS control panel is on http;//172.18.124.
Re:WTF? An "MSIE" plug-in? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:WTF? An "MSIE" plug-in? (Score:3, Informative)
Hopefully, they will add a Firefox plug-in soon.
Re:WTF? An "MSIE" plug-in? (Score:4, Interesting)
First is that of hardware support. OSX supports a fairly narrow array of hardware--most of it designed for OSX specifically. Driver translation, although not impossible, would take some effort and money. This problem, although not a show stopper (since Apple could, if they wanted to, make it happen), is a significant hurdle. It isn't that there aren't lots of drivers for OSX, but that those drivers would need to be rewritten for a new OS on a new platform. Costly and annoying. Also confusing for those who are purchasing a new bit of hardware.
The second reason is more important, and probably is the show stopper. From what I can tell (and I'm sure others will chime in), Apple makes a good portion of their money from hardware sales--not software. Arguably (though not necessarily) selling OSx86 (I like the nomenclature) would reduce sales of their hardware beyond the point of increased revenue from selling the software (remember that there would be increased development costs). The question is two-fold: would there be a significant reduction in sales of hardware? and, how many peices of software need to be sold in order to make up for one lost sale of a new iMac? If you can answer those questions, then you know whether or not this is a show-stopper. I would guess that it is. The folks at Apple are not stupid (regardless of what some folks will tell you). I am sure that more than one bean counter has run the figures and KNOWS what the costs would be. What they don't know, and probably can't know, is how many people who would NEVER buy a Mac (hardware) would LOVE to have OSx86 (or OSx86-64). I suspect that it would offset sales, but they obviously don't agree.
There is a third reason--Steve Jobs may not want to position themselves to compete directly with MS. It isn't exactly the most healthy way to do business.
A fourth reason also has to do with Jobs--he may just not like the idea, and frankly, that would be enough.
I think that just about covers the argument. That said, I would buy OSx86-64, if only to confuse people!
Bring back "Yellow Box"! (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to me they may already me doing that, what with QT7 being a Cocoa app (and I wouldn't be surprised to find iTunes is not far behind).
Seems to me we may see Apple pushing back into the cross-platform application development arena very soon, as a hook to customers to move off Carbon on the OS X platform...
???
KDE has it too (Score:5, Informative)
Xgrid on Windows?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't have too much knowledge of the nuts and bolts of Xgrid, but ZeroConf networking seems to me the first step to porting it on Windows. After all, it is not too much different than distributed number crunching projects (e.g. SETI@Home), or is it?
Re:Xgrid on Windows?!? (Score:3, Informative)
Linux! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Linux! (Score:3, Informative)
It's included by default in Fedora Core 4 [jimmysweblog.net] (currently at test 2 release).
Nice MacOS X advert... (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
Now anyone using a Windows PC can take advantage of the effortlessness of Bonjour for free. The Bonjour Setup Wizard makes setting up a printer under Windows as easy as Mac OS X (we can't make it as beautiful, unfortunately).
Cool.
Re:Nice MacOS X advert... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd rather have them use standard Windows design guidelines. At least the XP UI is skinnable with visual styles [deviantart.com], so if they stick to the native UI, they'd deliver skinnable apps that are uniform with the others instead of forcing on their own crap on us.
Heck, then even those of the Windows
Re:Nice MacOS X advert... (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing about Apple's UI that annoys me (well, apart from the whole chrome thing, which is just a bit nasty because it's inconsistent) is the way they bark at Windows developers like they're small children when they port their apps to Mac OS and don't conform to every Mac OS UI convention...but when Apple port their apps to Windows? Well, screw the standard UI furniture and behaviour! We're Apple!
Case in point: focus behaviour. Windows and Mac OS deal with focus switching differently. In Mac OS, you click on a window that does not have focus, it switches focus to it, and that's it. It doesn't matter where you click, a Mac window will eat the click. Whereas in Windows, all controls are 'live' even if the window does not have focus. So if you click on a button in a window that does not have focus, the button receives the click (as well as the window receiving focus).
Now, you can argue about which is best all you like, but the important thing is: Windows does it one way, Mac OS does it the other, and users on both platforms are used to that.
Until iTunes for Windows comes along, and it uses the Mac OS focus model. I've only started using iTunes again for a week recently, and I've already lost count of the number of times I've had to double/triple/quadruple click because the first click was eaten etc, and then my intentions were misunderstood by iTunes, and it's let me rename a track instead of playing it as I want to, etc.
It's either ignorance or sheer arrogance [penny-arcade.com], and either way it's annoying. Don't screw with platform standards, just because you think you're so great that you can. iTunes is the only app I run on Windows that behaves like this. Great. Just great.
And don't get me started on why the fsck it uses Aqua scroll bars on Windows. What the hell were they thinking?
Answers like "it's branding" don't wash. To most people, that argument plays in their heads like this: "We don't give a fsck about the users."
Re:Nice MacOS X advert... (Score:3, Interesting)
Consistency in the look and feel of GUI elements is not foolish. It makes it easier for the user to know what will happen when he does something within the interface. It's much more difficult to memorize different scenarios for every application.
That's one of the problems with Windows. All applications do things slightly differently. Apple pushes 3rd party developers hard to comply with their standards, and the system is better fo
Switch (Score:3, Funny)
The printer wizard is very interesting for HPusers (Score:5, Interesting)
Programs and ease of use (Score:5, Informative)
You won't have seen it advertised explicitly, it simply sits and works.
It is used for sharing in the iApps:
iTunes
iPhoto
chatting in iChat
Finding servers to use in the Server Admin tools,
Transmit (the Panic FTP client) supports it,
It is used to find file shares on the network, using AFP
Anywhere networking just happens, without having to do anything more than simply turn it on chances are Bonjour is behind it.
Alex
Re:Programs and ease of use (Score:3, Interesting)
Bye, bye! (Score:4, Funny)
Au revoir!
Great... (Score:5, Interesting)
TiVo support (Score:5, Informative)
Problems with Bonjour: (Score:4, Funny)
I keep getting IM coupons for French Roast Coffee.
When I play German music on iTunes, all the Bonjour connections surrender and vanish.
QuickTime unexpectedly opens a connection and begins playing Jerry Lewis films.
iTunes insists that I listen to European Jazz Internet Radio at least once a day.
And Bonjour works best only in trendy art café hot-spots while the end user smokes clove cigarettes.
I'm sure Apple will correct these issues when they update OS X 'Tiger'
to
OS X 'La petite femme'.
Innovative (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Innovative (Score:3, Insightful)
Bonjour is not what makes SEE cool (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bonjour is not what makes SEE cool (Score:3, Interesting)
Moreover, they've written [pm.org] several [drunkenblog.com] times [slashdot.org] that SubEthaEdit leverages several OSX technologies, including both Bonjour and Cocoa, as well as makes (unorthodox?) use of open protcols like BEEP [beepcore.org]. From the sound of it, getting SEE to work without this toolkit would be very hard to do.
I'm a little more interested in support for the SEE protocol in an editor like Vim or Emacs. If they can add it, then it'll instantly be available to people using any platform at all, even if SEE never gets ported to anything else.
Re:Bonjour is not what makes SEE cool (Score:3, Informative)
Howl (Score:4, Insightful)
The only difference here is that this is the blessed client by Apple.
Re:Howl (Score:3, Interesting)
The only difference here is that this is the blessed client by Apple.
Well, to be accurate, if Howl is based on the opensource library for Zero Conf, that, too is blessed by Apple, as they - in the
How is this going to cause someone to switch? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How is this going to cause someone to switch? (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides: Microsoft invents some services and keeps it to themselves and theyr're called selfish a$$holes. Mac comes up with a new service, release it to new platforms, and you give them a different, but equal amount of flack. Go figure.
Why not UPnP? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why not UPnP? (Score:4, Informative)
Can somebody explain to me what ZeroConf has got over UPnP?
UPnP is patent encumbered. It does not do auto discovery over a network. UPnP works like a piece of crap. On my mac I have a usb printer plugged into another machine or hub. Within seconds of turning it on it is available to every mac on my network with no configuration. I have to manually add it to each windows machine. I can automatically see other users running ichat, itunes, etc. and connect to the services they offer, just by being on the same subnet. Taking a mac to a conference became an amazing thing a few years ago. Imagine being able to chat with everyone else there, automatically, with no configuration or trading of info. imagine being able to listen to a steam from their mp3 player. imagine being able to collaboratively edit a document with no configuration. I do all these things redularly. It it so much more useful than UPnP that the comparison is ludicrous.
Re:Why not UPnP? (Score:3, Informative)
UPnP can be made to do similar things on it's own, if you write enough wrapper code...
Not new (Score:3, Interesting)
Switch! (Score:3, Funny)
[..]and to gain Apple switchers by enticing Windows customers."
I too am an Apple switcher. I power down every Mac I come across.
Re:Rendevouz? (Score:2)
Re:Rendevouz? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Is this a first? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Is this a first? (Score:2, Informative)
quicktime.
Re:Is this a first? (Score:5, Interesting)
HP? No. IBM or Sony? Yes... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, an "IBM Mac" or a "Sony Mac" just might because IBM (despite the proposed sale of the PC division) and Sony have at least shown an ability to innovate desktop and notebook design, whereas HP, Dell and the rest of the field have barely contributed anything significant in a long time, if at all.
Re:HP? No. IBM or Sony? Yes... (Score:3, Interesting)
The other thing they could do for an IBM version would be to re-skin OS X to be more OpenStep-like again, so that it would be more "industrial" and less friendly-looking -- that would help differentiate the products.
Re:Is this a first? (Score:3, Interesting)
An IBM Mac would make more sense. IBM already make more-or-less Mac compatible hardware (i.e. hardware that can run OS X inside Mac-On-Linux - similar to VMWare - but not boot it natively). They also target a very different market to Apple - IBM focus on the corporate desktop and the scientific / engineering workstation, while Apple focus on the consumer and the creative / artistic wor
Re:Is this a first? (Score:5, Interesting)
Quite simply , apple makes a hell of alot more off of hardware and support(not so sure about support though) than they do off of software so it would not be in their best intrests.
Re:Is this a first? (Score:5, Funny)
After the meal, over a delightful little bottle of 1992 Pinot Grigiot, he leaned over and said to me in a conspiratorial tone, "Hermann, for that is your true name, why do you insist on stalking me, you pompous delusional fuckwit? We're not having lunch; rather you have just prostrated yourself on the ground in front of me in an attempt to slather on my boots. As an intern in accounts receivable, you have no more right to use the royal "we" than a cockroach. Begone filth".
Jobs has a way of being tangential, elusive, not saying what he really means. I recall, back when we founded Apple in my garage in 1976, etc etc ...
Re:Say.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Say.. (Score:3, Funny)
Say that the computer is turned off, but plugged and ready to boot.
Say that you're dead, as most of the people who have ever lived are.
Then what's the point
Re:"After installing Bonjour, you must restart..." (Score:5, Informative)
It's necessary when you're trying to change a file that's currently in memory. But the windows installer framework, for several years now, gives you the chance to shut down applications using locked files so you don't have to reboot. You can refuse and you'll have to reboot.
In this case I can't imagine it needs a reboot; it's probably hooking something into IE or explorer, or maybe installing a device driver or service - they're probably skimping on testing by only supporting service start-up on reboot, it's cleaner environment to work from. Even if they're hooking something deep into the IP stack they could easily restart all networking on the machine.
Is there a multi-user version of windows yet? Why do I have to log out as 'user' before I can log on as 'administrator'?
Yes, Windows XP lets you switch between users and separate desktops unless it's attached to a domain. But you can only be one user at once, and remote-desktopping in (XP Pro only) kicks off the console user.
You can always use "runas
Re:BSD/Linux? (Score:5, Informative)
http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/bonj
Bonjour Source Code
The Mac OS X mDNSResponder source code is available from the Darwin CVS repository. This package includes platform specific code for implementing Bonjour on Mac OS X, Windows, Windows CE, Linux and VxWorks, and also includes helper applications for browsing and advertising services. Hardware device manufacturers are encouraged to embed the Darwin open source mDNSResponder code directly into their products.
Re:psychological warfare? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:UPnP has patents and Bonjour does not... (Score:5, Informative)