From:	"A.Appleyard" <A DOT APPLEYARD AT fs2 DOT mt DOT umist DOT ac DOT uk>
To:	DJGPP AT SUN DOT SOE DOT CLARKSON DOT EDU
Date:	Tue, 18 Apr 1995 10:36:07 BST
Subject:	Distributing djgpp (or any other large package)

  I wrote:-
> May I suggest another way, cheaper than setting up a FTP server?

  Stephen Turnbull replied:-
> Um, what's cheaper than free?

  Erh???? FREE!?!?!? First I'd have to buy a PC to dedicate as the FTP server,
to run day and night, and PC's cost. Then find the space for it. And connect
it to the internet.
  To run a PC as an FTP server, would it need any extra boards or chips? My
department's two Novell server PC's have to have extra boards.

  Stephen Turnbull replied:-
> Get Linux. OK, if yer runnin' Maxen you can't run Linux (or *BSD, is that
> right?)

  Excuse my ignorance, but what are Linux & Maxen & BSD? I only use PC's, not
Unix. My PC has the Clarkson FTP system on it (but it is not configured as a
server).

  I wrote:-
> Let the site (university or whatever) keep djgpp etc on a notebook PC,
> already unzipped if there is hard disk room for it; and also LAPLINK. If
> Mr.X wants djgpp (or whatever), someone takes the laptop, and a laplink
> connecter cable, and a floppy with LAPLINK on it ...

  Stephen Turnbull replied:-
> When I first looked into LapLink, I believe it had the standard idiotic
> licensing, which required you to buy LapLink for each computer you wanted to
> transfer to. Have they fixed this bug? ...

  Must I bother with such fiddle-de-dees? Who's going to bother? If I have a
licenced copy of Laplink, and I temporarily copy it to the receiving computer,
who's going to bother? Surely it's in the nature of Laplink and similar that
it must be on 2 PC's for it to work!?!? OK, so if I undertake to delete the
Laplink off each receiving PC afterwards: etc etc: but in the real world, at
least in England, there is a legal Latin saying "De minimis non curat lex" =
"The law does not concern itself with trifling matters".

  I wrote:-
> to Mr.X's office, and thus copies in as much or little of djgpp (or
> whatever) as Mr.X wants. A file server in a backpack!

  Stephen Turnbull replied:-
> If "someone" isn't on call within the same amount of time as for the
> original installation to provide Mr.X with the sources, this is a copyright
> violation ...

  When the server-man goes to Mr.X's office, he then laplink copies in Gnu C
only, or all of djgpp, or whatever Mr.X wants out of djgpp.
  As regards the risk of Mr.X getting the minimal set quickly, and later
wanting the full form but the server-man is at coffee or off scuba diving or
whatever: it is a delay indeed: but when I got a bigger PC and wanted to get
the full form of djgpp by FTP it certainly wasn't `on call within the same
amount of time as for the original installation'!, the net was dead slow and
the server was logged-in full, and I had to come in to work early one weekend
morning to get the full djgpp.

- Raw text -