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PuTTY 0.61 released
Version 0.61 of the PuTTY SSH
client has been announced;
this is the first release from this project in over four years. Changes
include support for SSH2 authentication using GSSAPI, GTK2 support, various
optimizations, OpenSSH compression support, and more.
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PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 13, 2011 15:21 UTC (Wed) by roblucid (subscriber, #48964) [Link] Surely it should be PuTTY 16.1 by now, I remember using that far too long ago *grin*
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 13, 2011 15:28 UTC (Wed) by ean5533 (subscriber, #69480) [Link]
Only if you're using Firefox's new versioning scheme.
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 14, 2011 12:15 UTC (Thu) by webmastir (guest, #59528) [Link] lol. nicely said, sir.
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 13, 2011 16:56 UTC (Wed) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link]
I hope they merged the fixes from Kitty...
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 13, 2011 17:06 UTC (Wed) by jwakely (subscriber, #60262) [Link]
These two fixes were what drove me to switch to kitty on my desktop at work, I can live without the other changes:
- Crashing when the server unexpectedly closes the network connection
- On Windows: PuTTY reads from the clipboard in a separate thread
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 13, 2011 17:33 UTC (Wed) by MattPerry (guest, #46341) [Link] And for those people that use SecureCRT, a Linux version is now available.
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 13, 2011 18:55 UTC (Wed) by colo (subscriber, #45564) [Link]
Eh? What in the nine hells it _that_? And why does it start at US$ 129?
I mean, that'd certainly be OK if it did the dishes and kept my flat clean autonomously, but for a mere Terminal Emulator with a built-in SSH2 client... why would anyone spend hard-earned money on that of all things?
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 13, 2011 19:45 UTC (Wed) by MattPerry (guest, #46341) [Link]
> Eh? What in the nine hells it _that_?
It's a cross-platform terminal emulator with telnet, ssh, and serial support. For my needs it's far superior to any other tool, free or commercial, that I have used. I've been using it since 1998. Nothing has come along that's convinced me to switch, so I've stuck with it.
> And why does it start at US$ 129? [...] why would anyone spend hard-earned money on that of all things?
Because the people who make it are not running a charity. They have families to feed and mortgages to pay. I find the money worth it because their support has been top-notch. I don't mind paying for the things that I use when I get value for what I pay.
It's the same reason that people pay for Nagios XI instead of using the free Nagios, or pay for Red Hat Enterprise instead of using Fedora, or pay for VMware vSphere when they could use the free ESXi, VirtualBox, or Xen.
Paying for support, even if I never use it, is a nice safety net. I can expect good customer service when I pay for it compared to most free software projects that don't understand what customer service is. It also means the company can pay their programmers to do the non-fun hard stuff like fixing hard bugs, fit and finish, and proper QA. Most free software seems stuck at being 80% finished where paid-for software can afford to go the extra bit and do things right.
For example, I've had zmodem support in SecureCRT since 1998 and it's an important feature for me. People have been asking for that feature in Putty for a few years. It wasn't until Kitty was forked from Putty last year that zmodem support was added. I went with what worked for me and it was worth the money. I'm not rich like Mark Shuttleworth and I'm not a programmer like Jonathan Corbet. Open-source software is as closed to me as closed-source software because I'm not a professional programmer and I can't afford the thousands of dollars it would cost to hire a programmer to implement the things I need. I think that point is lost on the Richard Stallman's of the world.
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 13, 2011 21:06 UTC (Wed) by wt (guest, #11793) [Link]
I don't believe that one has to be a professional programmer to see the benefits of free software. I am a systems administrator, not a professional programmer. Even I have managed to contribute a patch or some other kind of improvement to open source software occasionally.
Also, I find it odd that your comment was advocating the use of proprietary alternatives on a site that deals almost exclusively in free software. It just seems a little off topic and trolly.
wt
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 14, 2011 6:57 UTC (Thu) by MattPerry (guest, #46341) [Link]
> I don't believe that one has to be a professional programmer to see the
> benefits of free software. I am a systems administrator, not a > professional programmer. Even I have managed to contribute a patch or > some other kind of improvement to open source software occasionally.
Oh, I don't deny that there are benefits to free software. However, being aware of these benefits doesn't mean that one always has the ability to take advantage of them. I am also a system administrator. Writing the occasional 100 line Perl script is as complex a program as I have needed (or want) to write.
I have also contributed patches to programs where I had the motivation, need, and skills. But these patches were simple. The last one was a patch for F-Spot to add a thicker highlight outline to the selected photo thumbnail [1]. There's a big difference between doing that and the example of adding ZModem support to a terminal emulator like Putty. The latter is most certainly beyond my skill set.
I am also no stranger to trying to fund changes to free software. The last time I funded a change was in 2002 when I pledged $1,000 towards a programmer who would add Netscape roaming profile support to the Mozilla Suite (long before it was Seamonkey) [2]. Several others pledged money and we were able to pay a guy in Germany named Ben Bucksch to make the change. I paid up [3] and it worked that time, but it cost me a lot of money. It wouldn't have worked without other people contributing to pay the programmer as I couldn't have afforded his services on my own. Organizing a pool of money and corordinating that was a pain. In a commercial setting it might not be so bad, but I don't want to do it again at a personal level.
Sure, I could learn the skills needed to make complex changes to complex programs myself. I could also learn to be a gourmet chef or a cardiologist. But I don't have the desire to be any of those things, and I do not want to invest the time and energy to learn those things for the few times I would use them. Because I can't afford to pay someone to add the features that I want, and I don't have the skills to add them myself, the openness of the source is inconsequential to me. It has no bearing, positive or negative, on how I perceive the value of the software. Your perspective may differ based on your needs, skills, the software, and how those all fit together.
As an example, I use LibreOffice only because I don't have to pay money for it. From my perspective it's just as closed as Microsoft Office. When I compared the two, the difference in cost was the variable that carried the most weight. If LibreOffice cost as much as Microsoft Office I would weigh different variables to make my decision.
> Also, I find it odd that your comment was advocating the use of
I mentioned that an alternative program that provides an identical function has recently released a Linux version and you object merely because the source code is not available? At least the program I mentioned runs on Linux. The Putty program in this topic's announcement only runs on a proprietary operating system. Wouldn't that be just as off topic and trolly to endorse software on this site that will only run on proprietary systems?
A proprietary application on a free OS is bad, yet a free application on a proprietary OS is acceptable. Why were you not objecting to the latter? What makes it any more acceptable than the former?
I am not trying to bait you, nor does your answer really matter. I suspect it may be that what is important to you is not important to me, or vice versa. I'm sure that not all of the users here are interested in the same things as you. If so, I wish the others would speak up.
I do not care about free software and its culture. I could not care less about lawyer issues such as software licensing and patents. I'm sure those things are facinating to lawyers, but I find them boring. I do, however, like reading about technical issues such as systemd, huge pages, and realtime Linux. I'll leave the politics to the politicans.
That being said, there is another reason that my post was relevant. Another company has seen fit to release a Linux version of their software. Not just a server program that runs on a headless server in a datacenter, but an end-user application. This is a reason to celebrate! This company has dedicated resources toward producing this program, likely at the request of their users. I, for one, am happy to see another company take a step towards supporting Linux. Such efforts should be welcomed, not discouraged. Maybe this trickle will turn into a torrent, and years from now releasing a product for Linux as well as Windows will be seen as a routine thing to do.
1. https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/513036
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 14, 2011 7:04 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
even without the time or money to directly contribute code (and I have also done both), I've found that opensource projects tend to be much more willing to listen to a well presented use-case when both describing problems _and_ when looking at a new different way to use the software
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 14, 2011 8:40 UTC (Thu) by przemoc (subscriber, #67594) [Link]
> The Putty program in this topic's announcement only runs on a proprietary operating system.
Chigau! It works on *nix fine and in fact it is available in many distros' repositories. In case you want to try the latest, just download and extract
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 14, 2011 9:12 UTC (Thu) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
I never bothered with putty on Linux. I just use OpenSSH from my distro. The distro has already integrated the ssh agent in my X session. I also use pam_ssh to further reduce the hassle of passphrases.
I have a host of other terminal emulators. pterm is one of them, though not the best. I actually use a rather non-standard one (mlterm) but FWIW, I could use any other one. Why should the terminal emulator be tied to the SSH program? A serial console is even a completely different beast.
SSH sessions? well - that's .ssh/config .
Why would I pay for such a bloatware? And one that does not work on all my systems? And that I should bother installing manually on all the computers in the network? That's just funny.
(Having it included in the distribution and well-integrated, is a direct result of it being Free Software)
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 16, 2011 18:50 UTC (Sat) by jonabbey (subscriber, #2736) [Link]
I use ROXTerm, which is similar to Gnome Terminal but has better behavior with regard to screen sessions (you can prevent screen from setting the terminal window title if you like) and is more configurable.
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 14, 2011 13:36 UTC (Thu) by jwakely (subscriber, #60262) [Link] At least the program I mentioned runs on Linux. The Putty program in this topic's announcement only runs on a proprietary operating system.Others have pointed out that's not true. Wouldn't that be just as off topic and trolly to endorse software on this site that will only run on proprietary systems? No, because PuTTY is free software. A proprietary application on a free OS is bad, yet a free application on a proprietary OS is acceptable. Why were you not objecting to the latter? What makes it any more acceptable than the former? Because it's free software and this site is about free software, not just Linux. From the LWN FAQ: LWN, initially, was "Linux Weekly News." That name has been deemphasized over time as we have moved beyond just the weekly coverage, and as we have looked at the free software community as a whole.
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 14, 2011 21:03 UTC (Thu) by gezza (subscriber, #40700) [Link]
"Another company has seen fit to release a Linux version of their software. Not just a server program that runs on a headless server in a datacenter, but an end-user application. This is a reason to celebrate!"
There are a whole bunch of people working on and running wine, which is about trying to achieve the running of proprietary software on top of
IMHO, companies producing versions of their software which run on to of free
The tone of a number of the comments could indeed be different, but welcome to the internet! Comment tones available for all musical tastes ;-)
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 13, 2011 23:51 UTC (Wed) by geuder (subscriber, #62854) [Link]
> I can expect good customer service when I pay for it compared to most free software projects that don't understand what customer service is.
You can expect good customer service maybe, but how often do you get what you expect? My employers have paid for all kind of software during the last 20 years. And I have struggled with their customer sercive. From the 20 years I remember only 2 exceptions with good customer service. One was a company that has been taken over more than 10 years ago and the other one is 3 man shop, where the chief programmer answers support requests the same day.
Certainly with open source you can get all kind experiences of not so good support. But at least you don't waste your money for completely clueless call center representatives. The chance to find somebody competent in open source projects is bigger than in commercial support schemes, despite the fact that you don't pay.
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 14, 2011 10:19 UTC (Thu) by sitaram (subscriber, #5959) [Link]
You should have just said: "because it supports zmodem, which none of the free ones do" or variations on that theme.
Honestly, that's the only part of your answer that most people reading LWN would not have known. The rest of your response is irrelevant at best, patronising at worst. Some might even call it sanctimonious.
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 15, 2011 11:13 UTC (Fri) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]
And even the zmodem support is being worked on ?:
http://www.9bis.net/kitty/?page=ZModem&zone=en
KiTTY is a fork of PuTTY based on a lot of patches from others.
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 16, 2011 11:56 UTC (Sat) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link]
(If I wanted zmodem, I would be using minicom anyhow.)
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 18, 2011 4:04 UTC (Mon) by MattPerry (guest, #46341) [Link]
How do you tie minicom into your ssh session? Does it integrate as cleanly as SecureCRT or Putty/Kitty? i.e., just type "sz <filename>" and the files are transfered from your remote session to your local desktop, and "rz" to get a file requester and select files to send to the remote computer.
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 18, 2011 8:48 UTC (Mon) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link]
I have yet to find a reason why I should use rz/sz when one can ssh into the receiving side anyway (and then using sftp/scp/rsync+ssh).
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 18, 2011 11:28 UTC (Mon) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]
I wonder if there is a GUI which supports the multiplexing which OpenSSH allows in newer versions.
I guess that could be used to transfer files through the same connection ?
The SSH-protocol has had supports for channels for ages anyway.
Strange it isn't being used for that. Maybe what I should be asking is: why aren't the channels being used for transfering files ?
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 18, 2011 4:48 UTC (Mon) by zenaan (subscriber, #3778) [Link]
Gday Matt,
Your comments are indeed patronising, appear somewhat emotional to me, and are not properly founded in fact. You appear to be emotionally attached to your position. I wonder are you somehow related to SecureCRT other than as a customer..
You say "Paying for support, even if I never use it, is a nice safety net." In principle I don't disagree, but:
It is _my_ right to choose whether to pay for any such safety net, pursuant to _my_ will. It is likely that my need for such a safety net, my financial position, and my other considerations and intents will be in my mind as I exercise _my_ right to choose any (and to choose no) such safety net!
If you offer to me a safety net for some computer interaction process in which I am engaged, then I may consider your offer.
I shall also consider my (in particular long term) intents for myself and, more importantly to me, for my community.
Take notice though, that should your "offer of support" be tainted with only being available in a bundling with some software of which you claim monopolistic rights (ie proprietary rights), that it is a rare instance indeed that I would advise myself to pay for the privilege of supporting _your_ software monopoly!
Presumably you knew already that giving up certain freedoms and that submitting to the intent of a monopoly proposition, is part of the nature of proprietary software (given your appearance here on LWN).
To use a little less legal-ese:
It appears _your_ points, which I don't properly fathom, are indeed lost on some of us "Richard Stallmans of the world".
Matt you might be struggling with the concepts of freedom, or you might be withholding full disclosure of your relationship with SecureCRT, or you might be engaged in some other proprietary (ie monopoly-creating) activity. I can only guess at what it is that drives your loose and emotional discussion.
In any case, it appears it might serve you well to consider more carefully what you say before you speak.
I wish you well
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 18, 2011 23:41 UTC (Mon) by zenaan (subscriber, #3778) [Link]
PS My choice is to use only software that respects my freedom. For programs that do respect my freedom, I don't object to giving the developers some money (when I'm able to do so). But if it is proprietary, I wouldn't take it if you paid me: I value my freedom more. On second thoughts, depending on how much you paid me, I would put that money toward a free libre alternative.
PPS I notice one basic confusion where you say "For my needs it's far superior to any other tool, free or commercial,"
Contrasting "free" with "commercial" is a misunderstanding suggesting you don't yet understand the concept of free software. For clarification see:
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Aug 1, 2011 6:11 UTC (Mon) by MattPerry (guest, #46341) [Link]
https://lwn.net/Articles/451935/
Hi zenaan,
Thanks for your response, and my apologies for the late reply. I'm sorry that you thought my post was emotional and unclear. I will try to provide a better explanation in this post. But first...
> I wonder are you somehow related to SecureCRT other than as a customer
I am only a customer and have no other relation to the program or company. Like most people, I like to tell others about things that I like, be it a program, a recipe, a good book, or a nice place to go for a bike ride.
Enough said about that. Now, regarding software freedom...
When I choose software to use, I care about using the best tool for the job. Therefore, I choose software based on my requirements. The requirements change depending upon the task or project that I am working on. I compare my requirements to what a program offers and see where the two intersect. If there is a good match, I will use the software.
The four freedoms offered by free software are only part of what a program offers. Other things that are offered are the functional features, the way it looks, or even the way it makes me feel (humans are emotional creatures). I may even avoid a program because I don't like who makes it. The four freedoms of free software offer a lot, but I don't always need them.
> Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
I don't need to run a program for any purpose; I only need it for the specific purpose that addresses my need. I only care about the program's offerings meeting my requirements. Given this, it's entirely possible that proprietary software can meet the level of freedom that I require. If my requirements change, the free software program will always meet the freedom requirements since it's fully permissive, whereas a proprietary solution may no longer do so.
> Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your
I've never needed freedom 2. Everyone I interact with has Internet access, so I would tell them to download whatever they need straight from the source. In this day of security consciousness, I doubt many people would accept anything that wasn't acquired directly from the source.
> Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to
> Freedom 3: The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to
I don't consider myself a programmer and, therefore, having the source code to programs is not of any use to me. Sure, I have taken advantage of Freedoms 1 and 3 a few times as an experiment and learning experience. Believe me, my contributions were nothing special. Thanks to the wonders of "configure && make && make install" and my Perl experience, I can muddle my way though fixing a typo or adding a thicker border to a GUI element if the source is sufficiently C-like. Adding anything more than the most trivial of changes is beyond my capabilities.
Hiring a programmer to add a feature or fix a bug is out of the question. Programmers are not inexpensive. I don't have the financial means to hire someone to do those things. I also have no desire to deal with the management overhead of doing so (evaluating and selecting a programmer, handling payment schedules, project management, etc.). I speak from experience on this matter (see my other post in this thread). It's easier and less expensive for me to find another solution.
Freedoms 1 and 3 offer a lot. However, they are never a requirement for me and contribute nothing to my decision when choosing what software to use. Those users who are in a position to take advantage of Freedoms 1 and 3 may have different requirements and will view things differently, but for me the effective contribution is nil.
The bottom line is that for my needs a proprietary program can be just as free as a free software program. This is due to the limitations that I have in taking advantage of the freedoms offered to me. I'm okay with that.
> Matt you might be struggling with the concepts of freedom, [...]
I think many free software advocates are struggling with the concepts of freedom. To truly advocate freedom you must give people the freedom to reject what you are offering. I don't have much interest in free software because the four freedoms do not provide me with much value. For some reason that seems to bother some free software advocates. They feel that if they only re-explain everything I can be convinced to accept their philosophy. I find it tiresome. I'm not interested in joining anyone's cause. I've stopped visiting many of the web sites where I encounter such people.
I care more about the freedom of my data than the freedom of my software. Software is a tool to accept input and produce output. The input and output are what are important to me. Tools can be replaced. If one doesn't work or restricts my ability to reach my goals, I'll find another tool to get the job done. By choosing wisely I can mix and match free and proprietary software without negative consequences. It is my choice to do this. There are others who do not feel the same way that I do. Those people place their data in others' hands by buying DRM-encumbered media, using cloud services, and using risky devices like Apple and Android phones. That is their decision to make, and I'm not going to waste any time convincing them that they should do something different. Despite the risks, these items meet the requirements of many people. The success of the iPhone is evidence of that.
Note: I consider Android to be risky because it's so closely tied to Google's cloud services. They have shown they will disable accounts which can cause users to lose access to data in their phone.[1] They will also remotely delete data from phones without the user's consent.[2]
> I can only guess at what it is that drives your loose and emotional
If my post seemed emotional then it's likely because I'm tired of people who feel that I should accept free software dogma if I am to use free software or even discuss it. That is not freedom. Free software licenses do not require me to advocate for free software's cause in order to use the software.
Linux and free software have become so intertwined that it's hard to find a web site that discusses Linux and Linux-based systems without also discussing free software. That's understandable, but it has led some people to believe that to embrace one a person must embrace the other. I come to sites like LWN because I enjoy reading about the technical details of new and different types of software. I don't care for the politics and legalese that make it happen. Such issues are outside of the scope of my interests and education. I skip articles that focus exclusively on those topics since I don't have any interest in them.
> In any case, it appears it might serve you well to consider more carefully what you say before
Again, I apologize if my original post was unclear. I hope I have made my position clearer in this post. I have thought extensively about this subject, and free software in general, for many years. If you view the other posts I have made in this thread you will see that I have done more than think about it; I have acted by attempting to contribute simple patches a few times and funded a developer to add a feature to the Mozilla suite. I am not new at this. My opinions are based on my own experiences. Your experiences are different so I suspect your opinions will be different.
1. http://slashdot.org/story/11/07/29/1211223/How-Google-Kil...
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Aug 1, 2011 12:31 UTC (Mon) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link]
> The four freedoms of free software offer a lot, but I don't always need them.
Heh. Yeah, we should get rid of habeas corpus. I'm not using that freedom right now either. :)
PuTTY 0.61 released Posted Jul 16, 2011 13:52 UTC (Sat) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link] It's worth buying on Windows, because it's an SSH client with a good set of terminal emulations, including the Linux terminal. It has a key agent, the ability to use OpenSSH keys, and port forwarding. When it was first written, there was nothing else that really did what it does, and nothing else is as polished, even now.PuTTY is pretty good, and does a lot of what SecureCRT does, but I've always found the feature set and interface of SecureCRT to be better. The 'phonebook' works in a much more intuitive way. And it has a companion program, SecureFX, which is a tolerable file-management utility that talks to FTP, FTP-over-SSL, and SFTP servers. I'm not overly fond of the interface there, but it gets the job done. And, as the other poster mentions, it supports Zmodem, which I've always found extremely useful. It's really nice to be able to just quickly send or receive a file without having to run a separate program.sz filename without having to change focus beats the hell out of starting another terminal window and typing scp username@remotehost:/path/to/remote/file /path/to/local/file, especially if you also have to retype a password or key passphrase.I'm not sure the value proposition is really there on Linux, since you can probably duplicate pretty much anything it's doing with tools that are already installed on your system. You save some hassle with the integrated client, but I'm not sure you save enough hassle to be worth $130. But on Windows? It's a goddamn great program.
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