Talk:Wireshark

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[edit] "802 standards"

Does "802 protocols can be dissected" refer to the IEEE802 group of standards or are there 802 protocols E. can handle? --84.56.228.90 13:50, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't refer to the 802.x standards, but there are really only 740 protocols (according to tethereal -G | wc -l). Perhaps we shouldn't give a number of protocols, as that number changes from release to release. Guy Harris 08:51, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I changed it to say "hundreds of protocols". Guy Harris 17:53, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

ooo, I didn't even have to do this part, yay! Ozzy 98 00:14, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ethereal now called WireShark

Ethereal has chaged it's name to WireShark (explained here). This article should be moved and all links updated. Jdm64 15:12, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've changed most links to now point to Wireshark instead of Ethereal. There still are some links, mostly ones that talk about Ethereal being included with an OS (i.e. Knoppix LiveCD, etc.). I'm not sure if those should be changed because Ethereal not Wireshark was included? Jdm64 18:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I've replaced the screenshot and caption of the screenshot.--T3h 07:48, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't change anythign right now. While the MAIN dev left, and took some people with him, he doens't own ethereal. And ethereal is still listed, and has not made not of this. So, this is a fork in the application development, unless the people at ethereal agree with it. It may very well be that ethereal keeps going, and this project flops, just because of the name and backing. Wireshark is not Ethereal, so please don't change Ethereal into wireshark. They are two seperate objects, and how one transforms into the other hasn't been shown. Untill http://www.ethereal.com/ says it is now wireshark, then wireshark is a seperate program, broken off of the first.--Ozzy 98 18:40, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Every one of the core Ethereal developers (the ones with Subversion commit privileges to the repository) is now a Wireshark developer. Gerald didn't take "some people" with him - we all went. Guy Harris 19:35, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
But Ethereal, the name, isn't his now. And THAT ethereal is still there. Until that one acknowledges wireshark as the NEW ethereal, this is propaganda. It could be that they will countune development of Ethereal. Ethereal is NOT now wireshark. Wireshark is a new project using the same code base of Ethereal, sorta like Firefox vs. Mozillia. Untill NIS has to remove the program, then they own Ethereal, and the name, and it's two completely diffrent projects. And to say that Wireshark is Ethereal, without permission by NIS, is aginst the law. He can say made from the code from, but Ethereal is still a NIS product, and it still exists. Ethereal is still called ethereal by the owners of the name, and there is still a product out there, called ethereal. So, wireshark is not ethereal.--Ozzy 98 20:17, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it is tecnically correct that Wireshark is a fork. But, with the lead developer seeming taking all the other developers (like Guy Harris said), and the only real reason for the fork was over stupid copyrights, and the only "code" difference between the two is the name, I would say that it was more than a fork; more like a "under new management" because of copyright disputes! I think Whireshark is the new Ethereal. And all this should be noted in the article. -Jdm64 02:26, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

This would be like Activision saying "We're the NEW Atari" when they broke away from Atari in the 80s. They were all the "main" developers. Yet to this day, there's not one, but two Atari companys still around, and completely seperate from Activision (Who had some of it's core devs leave for that pendamic or whoever). Ethereal is still around, under that name. With over 500 people listed as developers, the "non-core" people may wish to stick with Ethereal, and not wireshark. Since I'm not on the team, and not going to read much more of the mailing list posts, I'm not able to say what one will get more support, or if they will both have the same support, or even if Ethereal will still have development. But as it stands now, Ethereal is not owned by Gerald, but his old employer. For all I know, his new company may have very well picked him up so they could say "We have the guy who made ethereal!". If that's true, then claiming that Ethereal is now wireshark, while the old company continues to use the name (For a reason too, they didn't keep it for fun!), well, that's aginst the law. It could be that the core developers are elitists, and make contribs by other users seem smaller then they are. I don't know, and guy is a core developer, so he's a POV source. The simple fact is, untill the owners of Ethereal say they will not be using the name, Ethereal is theirs, and it is NOT wireshark. I hate to have to bring this up to wiki administrators, but this should not have been moved, it was too soon. Ethereal IS STILL THERE. So the lead techs left. You didn't change winamp's page to a new name, even though it had a few more releases did you? What about rare, all the "main" developers left that company, and no one changed that page. Wireshark should have it's own page. I mean, you should have noticed when changing the links that you were running into issues, you said yourself you didn't know what to do about the Linux pages that still include Ethereal. And, to make it worse, where is the source for the "Ethereal is now wireshark?" The wireshark page? News pages that quote the wireshark page? Looking at wireshark's page you see: Q 1.1: What is Wireshark? A: Gerald Combs, the creator of Ethereal®, has initiated the Wireshark network protocol analyzer project, a successor to Ethereal®. Not the "a successor to Ethereal®.". Now, scroll down a bit, and you get to the MAJOR issue here...Commercial support, training, and development services are available from CACE Technologies. . Wait, commercial? So they can say "We have the guy who made Ethereal, get training from us, not the company who owns Ethereal trademarks". By changing this page, you have made a point of advertising for CACE, but Ethereal Software *ALSO* has comercial training services, *AND* they own the name of Ethereal. Gerald lost the right to control Ethereal, or at least the name. The problem with open source is, who owns the source? You may say "It's open, anyone can use it". But what if someone decided to make it NOT open. Who owns the source for Ethereal? This could be much more then a normal fork, where Ethereal gets changes wireshark doesn't. Anywyas, my long and winding point is, Ethereal is not Wireshark. So the main developers left, that's *NOT* something new in the software world. There's been times the whole dev team gets canned, but they don't control the software. If his company owns the name Ethereal, and won't let him have it back, then they *MUST* be planning on using it. If they can do anything with it remains to be seen, but untill www.ethereal.com says "Use wireshark, it's the new ethereal!" you have no reason, as per wiki user policy, to change this page or to say Ethereal *IS* Wireshark. All you're doing is hurting wireshark, and it can even have legal issues. If the owners of Ethereal ever feel wireshark oversteps it's bounds on the name, it wouldn't look good to have this page changed. Wireshark should have it's own page, and list the advantages it has over ethereal (Like, developers). Not hijacking the page of a program that is still there, and may still be in development. maybe they'll start selling Ethereal using Wireshark's source even. Got to love the joys of GPL on a legal level...--Ozzy 98 14:38, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok! I get your 756 words of explanation! But, how do you think we should solve this in relations to the article? I think the Wireshark page should stay, and that a section about Ethereal be made on the page. Ozzy 98, since you feel so STRONGLY about this, you can be in charge of the section. --Jdm64 15:25, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
bah, that's like work and stuff... and umm.. honstly, I have NO clue how. :o) I'm just worried that there might be repercussions aginst the wireshark people for these actions. I was thinking more along the lines of 2 pages, Ethereal, and wireshark, with one of thoese little links on top of the page saying to go to wireshark cause it's based on the same code. Since wikipedia is the second hit on google for wireshark, a lot of care needs to be taken in the wording, by anyone directly connected to the project, if the Ethereal copyright holders do ever take legal actions, having a wireshark developer saying that Ethereal is dead and is now wireshark would look VERY bad, unless it was tongue and cheek. --Ozzy 98 15:56, 24 June 2006 (UTC) p.s. or, we could make a Ethereal page, link the wireshark page to it, say wireshark branched off from Ethereal taking the core developers, and let someone else edit the wireshark page.
I agree that they are not the same entity. But that doesn't mean that one cannot re-direct to the other. There are many examples of this all over the Wiki. --JimmyTheWig 16:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Moved page

Well, as stated in the talk, I felt it shouldn't have been moved, so I moved as close as I could get back to where it was. Changes Guy made that apply to this I'll get around to re-doing soon, and try to post a seperate page for Wireshark.

Before anyone thinks about just moving this back, you should keep one point in mind. Ethereal is a comercial product. While it is free to use, it is supported by the company who owns the Ethereal name. Wireshark also has comerical support for Wireshark. By changing the name of the page, you play into what amounts to an ad campain for Wireshark aginst Ethereal. The holders of the Ethereal name have not stated what they will do with the product, but they, not Gerald Combs, have the rights to the name Ethereal. Why they have it, and not Gerald, I don't know. But the fact they kept it and not let him have it shows they want to use it. And I'm not sure if Ethereal soft will support wireshark or not if they have a true development fork. And since wireshark is under GPL, Ethereal can use the wireshark source. Hence, Ethereal is not now called wireshark. --Ozzy 98 22:58, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merger

Gerald Combs has taken his copyrighted source code with him, as well as all the developers source. He fell out with his ex-boss over the trademark and web hosting, which is all that remains at the old site, no code seems to have been checked in since May.

Since Ethereal is now defunct, it is of purely historical interest as part of the Wireshark article. Furthermore, there is nothing significant on the Ethereal article which has not already been merged across to the Wireshark article.

Therefore in my opinion, the Ethereal (software) article should be ditched and redirected to Wireshark.

Some relevant sources are the official position on the Wineshark homepage and the Ethereal changes name to Wireshark. In the latter one Combs describes it simply as a name and domain change not a fork.

Zeth

What do you think? If you dissent, now is your chance?


Yes, merge it! Ethereal should mention Ethereal as the former name and link to Wireshark. Ethereal (software) should be a redirect to Wireshark for some time. And Ethereal should only be mentioned in the history of Wireshark. I already did that for de:Wireshark. --Phobie 17:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes Merge is the best option since there is no actual Ethereal as of now. It has been already renamed Wireshark also there has been a logo change too as one can see. The Website declares the transition as follows "The Ethereal network protocol analyzer has changed its name to Wireshark. The name might be new, but the software is the same. Wireshark's powerful features make it the tool of choice for network troubleshooting, protocol development, and education worldwide." -- Huntscorpio 21:26, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Recommend merger and redirect with an explanation of the name change on the new page. -- theprez98 07:47, 03 August 2006 (UTC)
Do not merge, since we just unmerged it. See the talk on ethereal to see why. It's still not the same program, Gerald willingly gave up the rights to the program, and while it's not a comercial program, the holders of the copyright for the name do offer comercial services for *ETHEREAL*, while the new company G works for also offers services for Ethereal\Wireshark. As I pointed out, they are no longer the same program, it's just not sure if any of them will surpass the otherone in updates (Or if ethereal will even be updated). Just read the talk on thereal for the reasons why we demerged the pages. (Or, rather, why I made a huge mess trying to, and some guy who's name I forgot fixed it for me... ) Ozzy 98 19:00, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
There isn't anything in Talk:Ethereal. My reading of the issue is that Ethereal is no longer developed on.
I vote for merging, possibly with an Ethereal section towards the bottom. -- BillWeiss | Talk 00:03, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
The "talk on ethereal" is Talk:Ethereal (software), as Ethereal is just a disambiguation page, and the page for the Ethereal application is Ethereal (software).
But, yes, nobody appears to be doing Ethereal development any more. Maybe we'll all be surprised and see updates from NIS, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Guy Harris 08:18, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Support merge. The two articles are almost identical. æ² ✆ 2006-09-23t17:55z
Oppose merge. Wireshark and Ethereal just recently split and are still quite similar. As time goes by, they'll grow apart and we'll have to unmerge again.
Oppose for now. It's impossible to tell what the NIS (the old company) will do. Although Combs owns the code, it's under the GPL, so NIS is free to continue developing it under the Ethereal name. However, if they don't, Ethereal (software) should eventually be redirected here. Superm401 - Talk 22:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Support the merge. The Ethereal site now points users to Wireshark. Ethereal development has ceased. Gerald Combs 15 Nov 2006
I don't see where on the Ethereal page that it points to wireshark, only mention of it from a site:ethereal.com wireshark are inside the mailing lists. And most of the mailing list hits sound like this: http://www.ethereal.com/lists/ethereal-users/200609/msg00117.html 63.235.124.111 18:00, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
It looks like most of the links were taken down on the 21st, but traces are still there. Take a look at the latest security advisory, this news item (no longer linked from the main page), and the HTML source of the download page, which has a link to Wireshark commented out.Gerald Combs 10 Dec 2006
Support the merge. It's not about whether Ethereal is Wireshark or visa-versa. If we have two different articles then they will be 90% the same. They will both talk about how the product works and will both talk about the split. Tinky Winky isn't the same as Teletubbies, but his page redirects there because that's the best place (for now) to have the information about him. --JimmyTheWig 16:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

Let's reconsider this. It seems like the Ethereal domain is fairly confused. However, the article correctly notes that an Ethereal security advisory noted critical security advisories in the latest version of Ethereal; Ethereal recommended switching to Wireshark. I really don't see them taking Ethereal any farther. As a separate note, does anyone have a source for who owns the copyright to Ethereal's codebase? It doesn't much matter thanks to the GPL, but it's a valid question. Gerald was an employee so it might be a work for hire (though there were apparently significant outside contributions). Superm401 - Talk 06:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Most of the source code has copyright notices like
* Ethereal - Network traffic analyzer
* By Gerald Combs <gerald@ethereal.com>
* Copyright <year> Gerald Combs
in it; some files have other contributors' copyrights. Guy Harris 18:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

NIS doesn't hold copyrights on any Ethereal or Wireshark source code. They only own the trademarks on the name "Ethereal" and the "e" logo. Even if they did hold any copyrights, it should be pretty clear by now that Ethereal-as-a-software-project has ceased, and continued on as Wireshark. Gerald Combs 10 Dec 2006

I’d like to add my thoughts to this debate. I view the Ethereal name and project a lot like I do Mozilla Firebird. Although it is true that some developer could check out sources to the latest Firebird code and fork off from there, no sane person would do that as it is far less developed than Firefox. You will notice that Firebird on Wikipedia doesn’t even have a link to the software project, because for all practical purposes it was superseded by Firefox, both in common name and in the code. If the Ethereal code does restart development, then it would make sense to talk about the projects running in tandem, each with their own wiki page. Until that time, the Wireshark code is the continuation where Ethereal left off, and therefore the Ethereal code is obsolete. Just look at the version numbers in the formal releases to see this: Ethereal 0.99.0, Wireshark 0.99.2, Wireshark 0.99.3, etc. This is a continuation of the same project, and the old one is defunct, and even broken (see this advisory for how Ethereal is broken.) Even the Ethereal anoncvs site doesn’t respond. If someone can make a case for any continued development in Ethereal this will be different. Until then, all “Ethereal” can refer to is outdated code and the ‘e’ logo. This deserves making a note of, but no more than Mozilla Firebird deserves it. In short, I would like to see the Wireshark page treat Ethereal as Firefox treats Mozilla Firebird on its page. Pekster 21:59, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm going ahead with this. No one has objected for two weeks. Superm401 - Talk 00:00, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
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