OMEN
09-04-2007, 10:07 AM
Developer hopes changes will convince Microsoft to repeal take-down order
A day after Microsoft shut down a free alternative to Windows Update, the program's 20-year-old developer said he is talking with the company about what it would take to resurrect his project.
Claiming copyright infringement, Microsoft on Wednesday forced the maker of AutoPatcher, a utility that updates Windows and Microsoft Office using pre-packaged collections of hotfixes and patches, to yank it from its download sites. Microsoft also said security concerns prompted the move, since it could not guarantee the contents of a patch or fix when users retrieved them from unsanctioned sources.
Antonis Kaladis, the 20-year-old Greek college student who wrote AutoPatcher, quickly complied with the cease-and-desist order he had received from Microsoft. "As much as we disagree, we can do very little."
On Friday, however, he said he was talking with Microsoft about changes to AutoPatcher that would make the program acceptable to the company. "We have actually come up with several ideas on how to work around this by downloading everything Microsoft-related on the spot, from their own servers, instead of including it and pre-bundling it," said Kaladis in an e-mail. Although he and the rest of those responsible for AutoPatcher contacted Microsoft for its blessing, "unfortunately, we have not received any official response of any kind yet."
Kaladis declined to go into more detail on the changes the AutoPatcher team has proposed to Microsoft, but in comments attached to his announcement Thursday, Kaladis has hinted at the way he and others are leaning.
Early Friday, a comment left by someone identified only as Fl3x suggested one way to keep AutoPatcher alive. "Make a tool that allow [sic] us legit users to download all needed updates from MS website, the tool will add the files we download to a folder, once we have all necessary updates, the tool will allow the end user to place all those files into just 1 .exe file which has all the downloaded MS updates from their own site to be installed on our PCs."
Kaladis replied two hours later. "Fl3x, this is what we will be working on. There are several ways of doing this, so right now we are trying to decide which is the best one."
Computerworld
A day after Microsoft shut down a free alternative to Windows Update, the program's 20-year-old developer said he is talking with the company about what it would take to resurrect his project.
Claiming copyright infringement, Microsoft on Wednesday forced the maker of AutoPatcher, a utility that updates Windows and Microsoft Office using pre-packaged collections of hotfixes and patches, to yank it from its download sites. Microsoft also said security concerns prompted the move, since it could not guarantee the contents of a patch or fix when users retrieved them from unsanctioned sources.
Antonis Kaladis, the 20-year-old Greek college student who wrote AutoPatcher, quickly complied with the cease-and-desist order he had received from Microsoft. "As much as we disagree, we can do very little."
On Friday, however, he said he was talking with Microsoft about changes to AutoPatcher that would make the program acceptable to the company. "We have actually come up with several ideas on how to work around this by downloading everything Microsoft-related on the spot, from their own servers, instead of including it and pre-bundling it," said Kaladis in an e-mail. Although he and the rest of those responsible for AutoPatcher contacted Microsoft for its blessing, "unfortunately, we have not received any official response of any kind yet."
Kaladis declined to go into more detail on the changes the AutoPatcher team has proposed to Microsoft, but in comments attached to his announcement Thursday, Kaladis has hinted at the way he and others are leaning.
Early Friday, a comment left by someone identified only as Fl3x suggested one way to keep AutoPatcher alive. "Make a tool that allow [sic] us legit users to download all needed updates from MS website, the tool will add the files we download to a folder, once we have all necessary updates, the tool will allow the end user to place all those files into just 1 .exe file which has all the downloaded MS updates from their own site to be installed on our PCs."
Kaladis replied two hours later. "Fl3x, this is what we will be working on. There are several ways of doing this, so right now we are trying to decide which is the best one."
Computerworld