Pablo Soto (software developer)

Pablo Soto Bravo
Pablo Soto in 2018
Municipal Councillor of Madrid
In office
2015–2019
Personal details
Born1979 (age 44–45)
Spain
OccupationSoftware developer, Former municipal councillor
Known forDevelopment of .MANOLITO protocol, Blubster, Piolet, and Omemo

Pablo Soto Bravo (born 1979) is a Spanish software developer. He was municipal councillor of Madrid from 2015 to 2019.

In 2001 he developed the .MANOLITO protocol, Blubster and Piolet - two peer-to-peer file-sharing servants. In May 2006, Soto released Manolito,[1] a third clone application, and new versions of Blubster and Piolet.

He apparently left the MP2P Community in 2004; subsequently Blubster and Piolet slowly began to lose their user base. By the end of 2004, when discussions on P2Pforums.com[2] were focused on whether or not he had left the community for financial reasons, it was known that he has a rare form of muscular dystrophy,[3][4] that has forced him to move in wheelchair.[5]

Soto later put his energy into Omemo [es],[6][7] an open source peer-to-peer software for storage space sharing (distributed computing).

In June 2008, Warner Music, Universal Music, Emi, Sony and the Spanish association PROMUSICAE filed a lawsuit against his company MP2P Technologies, demanding 13 million euros for unfair competition.[8] He was acquitted on the charges of copyright violation in December 2011.[9]

After the 2015 local elections Soto became a member of the City Council of Madrid with Ahora Madrid. He announced plans to promote usage of free software for the municipal software platforms,[10] and as of January 2019 is head of open government for the city. He has launched Decide Madrid, an online platform whereby citizens can propose policy for the city: a proposal supported by a number of users equal to 1 percent of the adult population is put before voters in a referendum.[11] He renounced to his office as city councillor on 8 October 2019, after sexual misconduct allegations.[12]

References

  1. ^ "Manolito Strikes Back". Archived from the original on 2019-01-09. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
  2. ^ "P2P Forums • View topic - next beta?". www.p2pforums.com. Archived from the original on 2008-06-08.
  3. ^ "Slyck.com Pablo alive?". Archived from the original on 2019-01-09. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
  4. ^ "Grokster chief heads to Spanish P2P firm". CNET. Archived from the original on 2015-10-17. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
  5. ^ "Ahora Madrid se queda sin sede por falta de presupuesto". www.abc.es. ABC. 28 May 2015. Archived from the original on 9 October 2019. Retrieved 9 October 2019.
  6. ^ "Slyck News - P2P Writer's Block". www.slyck.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03.
  7. ^ "Slyck News - Where's Pablo Soto?". www.slyck.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-24.
  8. ^ "David Bravo - Caso Napster a la Española: reclaman a desarrollador de software P2P 13 millones de euros". www.filmica.com. Archived from the original on 2016-06-24.
  9. ^ RODRÍGUEZ, VANESA (2011-12-19). "Pablo Soto, absuelto en el juicio de la industria discográfica contra el P2P". RTVE.es (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2023-08-10. Retrieved 2024-07-17.
  10. ^ "Software libre: la receta de Ahora Madrid para acabar con el "despilfarro informático"". www.economiadigital.es. Archived from the original on 2015-06-13.
  11. ^ "The digital activist taking politicians out of Madrid politics". 2019-01-09. Archived from the original on 2022-10-30. Retrieved 2024-07-17.
  12. ^ "El concejal de Más Madrid Pablo Soto dimite tras ser acusado de acoso sexual por una compañera". El País (in Spanish). 2019-10-08. ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 2023-04-04.