4 ms·

Somehow I'm comforted that there's still room in the open source universe for a project that hasn't released an update in four years. It's oddly comforting, and

by unwind 15y ago

Somehow I'm comforted that there's still room in the open source universe for a project that hasn't released an update in four years. It's oddly comforting, and serves as a nice change of tone from the common "release early, release often" mantra. I'm all for releasing early, but for many open source developers (myself included) life has a tendency to get in the way sometimes, causing focus to move away from one's projects. Of course, I haven't looked up the details of the PuTTY folks now, but from the release notes it sounds as if they at least aren't getting paid do to PuTTY.

thirsteh 15y ago
It's just one guy's hobby project, or at least Simon (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/ http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/) does 99% of the work.
rpedroso 15y ago
That's part of the reason for the KiTTY fork: http://kitty.9bis.com/ http://kitty.9bis.com/
- encoderer 15y ago
  I've used KiTTY but I'm going to have to switch back now: Jumplists are nice, but playing nice with the Windows 7 split-screen/tiling/etc shortcuts is just glorious.
  - javanix 15y ago
    Whoa! It does finally pay attention to my resize bindings, even in Vista. Awesome!
- darklajid 15y ago
  I've never heard about that before, but checking the site.. - Windows only? - Features like 'Protection against unfortunate keyboard input', 'Transparency', 'Background image', 'Send to tray' sound like useless gimmicks to me. Not even mentioning the 'bonus features'. Protection against unfortunate keyboard input is especially weird and seems to be targeted at root users that have cats and no clue about programs like vlock.
  - bdunbar 15y ago
    Windows only? Sure. Putty is for Windows to allow a user to connect to a real computer, running a unix-y operating system. Except you see a place for Putty in Linux (I guess) and by extension Solaris, HP-UX and etc. I don't see the point - those already _have_ terminal emulation. It's baked in. Can you educate me?
    - darklajid 15y ago
      I'm not sure if there's a misunderstanding here. Let me approach both possible interpretations I can think of: 1) You're saying that PuTTY is Windows only, and then go on explaining what it is for and why that might be okay. If that's what you think, that'd be wrong. PuTTY is available on a number of platforms, even on Linux. The port mentioned above though limits itself to Windows. I find that, plus the roadmap, weird & unfortunate to put it politely. 2) But that wasn't your point and you tried to make the point that PuTTY doesn't make _sense_ on platforms that already have a decent terminal emulator, ssh support etc. In that case: Fair enough. I'd even agree. But I know a lot of happy PuTTY Linux users. It's the old discussion about using native but different clients on a number of platforms or going for a (decent) cross-platform solution. I think it's great to have the choice to use software on a multitude of systems - even if I'm not an active user/see no need for myself.
      - sbierwagen 15y ago
        But I know a lot of happy PuTTY Linux users. Really? Who? Why? I cannot possibly think of any reason to use PuTTY in linux.
        bdunbar 15y ago
        - If a lab or school environment has multiple OSs, and a need to SSH (telnet/ftp) elsewhere - one would only have to write instructions once. - People who need ssh to a host, who are not comfortable with a command line, or are used to PuTTY. These might be service desk staff who have instructions like 'ssh to host frumpty, type restart-app [enter]' Our service desk has instructions like that, but they all use Windows. So, PuTTY. And if they use Linux .. PuTTY. It's easier. In actuality, they call the 3rd level support and ask them to do that. And, really, we're pushing that stuff to the Enterprise scheduler so all they _really_ have to do is login to _that_ and request job task 'Restart_FOO_App' and it's done for them. Which, in the long run, doesn't teach them how to do anything but push buttons. And is probably bad for their further development in IT. But I digress. I don't get how one can be using a 'unix-y' computer and not be familiar with the command line. But I understand there are people out there like that.
nodata 15y ago
But he does release early and often doesn't he? He just didn't give out a new version number for a while.
- mikemaccana 15y ago
  Really? I've seen GSSAPI patched versions of Putty for two years at least, but never an official version with those patches included.
  - nodata 15y ago
    I've used one of the nightlies with GSSAPI for at least a year.

by unwind 15y ago

thirsteh 15y ago

It's just one guy's hobby project, or at least Simon (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/ http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/) does 99% of the work.

rpedroso 15y ago

That's part of the reason for the KiTTY fork: http://kitty.9bis.com/ http://kitty.9bis.com/

encoderer 15y ago
I've used KiTTY but I'm going to have to switch back now: Jumplists are nice, but playing nice with the Windows 7 split-screen/tiling/etc shortcuts is just glorious.
- javanix 15y ago
  Whoa! It does finally pay attention to my resize bindings, even in Vista. Awesome!
darklajid 15y ago
I've never heard about that before, but checking the site.. - Windows only? - Features like 'Protection against unfortunate keyboard input', 'Transparency', 'Background image', 'Send to tray' sound like useless gimmicks to me. Not even mentioning the 'bonus features'. Protection against unfortunate keyboard input is especially weird and seems to be targeted at root users that have cats and no clue about programs like vlock.
- bdunbar 15y ago
  Windows only? Sure. Putty is for Windows to allow a user to connect to a real computer, running a unix-y operating system. Except you see a place for Putty in Linux (I guess) and by extension Solaris, HP-UX and etc. I don't see the point - those already _have_ terminal emulation. It's baked in. Can you educate me?
  - darklajid 15y ago
    I'm not sure if there's a misunderstanding here. Let me approach both possible interpretations I can think of: 1) You're saying that PuTTY is Windows only, and then go on explaining what it is for and why that might be okay. If that's what you think, that'd be wrong. PuTTY is available on a number of platforms, even on Linux. The port mentioned above though limits itself to Windows. I find that, plus the roadmap, weird & unfortunate to put it politely. 2) But that wasn't your point and you tried to make the point that PuTTY doesn't make _sense_ on platforms that already have a decent terminal emulator, ssh support etc. In that case: Fair enough. I'd even agree. But I know a lot of happy PuTTY Linux users. It's the old discussion about using native but different clients on a number of platforms or going for a (decent) cross-platform solution. I think it's great to have the choice to use software on a multitude of systems - even if I'm not an active user/see no need for myself.
    - sbierwagen 15y ago
      But I know a lot of happy PuTTY Linux users. Really? Who? Why? I cannot possibly think of any reason to use PuTTY in linux.
      - bdunbar 15y ago
        - If a lab or school environment has multiple OSs, and a need to SSH (telnet/ftp) elsewhere - one would only have to write instructions once. - People who need ssh to a host, who are not comfortable with a command line, or are used to PuTTY. These might be service desk staff who have instructions like 'ssh to host frumpty, type restart-app [enter]' Our service desk has instructions like that, but they all use Windows. So, PuTTY. And if they use Linux .. PuTTY. It's easier. In actuality, they call the 3rd level support and ask them to do that. And, really, we're pushing that stuff to the Enterprise scheduler so all they _really_ have to do is login to _that_ and request job task 'Restart_FOO_App' and it's done for them. Which, in the long run, doesn't teach them how to do anything but push buttons. And is probably bad for their further development in IT. But I digress. I don't get how one can be using a 'unix-y' computer and not be familiar with the command line. But I understand there are people out there like that.

nodata 15y ago

But he does release early and often doesn't he? He just didn't give out a new version number for a while.

mikemaccana 15y ago
Really? I've seen GSSAPI patched versions of Putty for two years at least, but never an official version with those patches included.
- nodata 15y ago
  I've used one of the nightlies with GSSAPI for at least a year.