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Old July 12th, 2005
Thermonuke
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Thumbs down changelog

Well, well, well. The 4.9.1 changelog is finally up. Apparently at almost exactly the same time 4.9.2 came out.

Unfortunately it seems to have some problems.

Quote:
4.9.1 (06.30.2005)
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- Fixed display of "downloading" and "incomplete" icons in search results.
Sorry, wrong. They're as inaccurate as ever in 4.9.1. And you don't even claim to have fixed them in 4.9.2 I see. Who suggested replacing them with bitzi rating info in another thread? That seems like a better idea than endlessly trying to fix something that seems incapable of being fixed.

Quote:
- Various Library and Download bug fixes from previous beta
Sorry, wrong again. Everyone knows it by now but 4.9.1 still had downloads hanging at 100% completion, files stuck queued, "Disk Problem" and "filesystem failure" with perfectly functional drives with plenty of free space, and all that jazz.

Now let's look at the 4.9.2 changelog. Unfortunately it's not very inspiring either.

Quote:
4.9.2 (07.11.2005)
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- Show License column by default in search results, and prompt user when downloading a file without a license.
I'd already downloaded the installer but now I'm going to delete it instead of running it. Nearly every file out there will generate this nuisance prompt for Christ's sake. For every file that has a CC license or some such associated with it there will be ten billion that have nothing of the sort. Literally -- that number is not hyperbole but actually a conservative estimate arrived at by scientific means.

Quote:
- Further Library and Download bug fixes from previous beta.
If you hadn't said that at least once before without it being true, and if you didn't just get through telling us that Limewire 4.9.2 will be totally unusable for downloading anything but a very narrow selection of mainly mp3 files, and extraordinarily painful for anyone trying to construct a large library of jpegs or something of the sort instead of a small library of music, to the point of inducing madness, seizures, and suicidal impulses, this might actually be worthy of interest. As it stands, it's rather as if a politician got elected on a platform of lowering taxes, raised taxes, and is now running for reelection on a platform of lowering taxes, while also promising that if they get elected they will completely revamp the motor vehicle bureau so that you have to wait in line twice as long, and instead of once a year you have to do so every time you change a flat, replace a signal bulb, put on or take off winter chains, or put another 10K on your odometer.

Thanks, but no thanks. I hope the misguided license-prompt feature will be gone in 4.9.3. Nearly every file lacks a license on the network and this will remain true for the foreseeable future and including for the vast majority of legal files, as well as (obviously) all the illegal ones. This feature seems designed to please the RIAA and MPAA rather than the users, even though it will chiefly inconvenience people downloading legit files that don't happen to come with a CC license attached. Which means EVERY USER, BAR NONE, with probability one.

(Of course, the illegal mp3s will all have bogus CC license files or similar accompanying them inside a week, while the vast majority of innocuous files still won't have license files, bogus or otherwise...)