National Instruments has terabytes of software. And, new software is being released everyday!
It is becoming increasingly difficult to find specific versions of NI Software. Occasionally marketing will change the name of a package, or a specific software package becomes bundled into a much larger install file.
By having a BitTorrent option it would greatly speed up the download process of NI software.
Also when multiple packages are needed such as Real-Time, and FPGA it is simple to create a list of downloads that are linked by a BitTorrent Seed link.
When attempting to create links to the NI website downloads there is are guarantee that the link will work years from now. Where with the BitTorrent a long as there are peers available the BitTorrent link is 'mostly' functional.
By placing NI software on a BitTorrent downloads will be faster.
This same concept could be extend to additional tools such as the JKI Package manager.
Of course BitTorrent would not replace the traditional website or FTP downloads from NI since many larger companies block P2P transfers. With that in mind many companies allow exception to this rule with a legitimate business need.
This seems to be a sensible option. It could be part of the the licensing agreement with colleges. A slight educational discount in exchange for hosting NI software on there BitTorrent services along with their Linux Distros.(i don't know if that would be an option)
As a contractor I can easily spend a day or more just downloading NI software with each client I work with. And, then (on rare occasion) I run into the hassle of downloading the wrong version or language only to repeat the download.
The NI website does a lousy job identifying (grouping) packages by release date to ensure that all downloads are in lock step with each other.
Having BitTorrent Seed links would not help that, but it would greatly simplify communications to others on a team what was downloaded.
The image below is an example of what adding a BitTorrent link would look like.
It would also be nice if NI also added a SHA checksum along with the MD5 checksum. The MD5 has been proven to have security weakness and it is possible to fake a MD5 checksum. This would be a nice security check if the software was going to be downloaded form the BitTorrent eco system.
Heck, why not have NI create their own BitTorrent Client that would only list and optimize NI software for downloads?
It could be a mixture of FTP/website/and BitTorrent file download options.
Am I the only one that has experienced the pain of repeatedly downloading and managing software from NI?
