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Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 14:32:29 -0500
From: Christopher Faylor <cgf AT redhat DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Why the rash of people bypassing setup.exe to install?
Message-ID: <20030214193229.GA23190@redhat.com>
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References: <20030214182615 DOT GA20996 AT redhat DOT com> <Pine DOT GSO DOT 4 DOT 44 DOT 0302141331580 DOT 7773-100000 AT slinky DOT cs DOT nyu DOT edu>
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On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 01:34:59PM -0500, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
>On Fri, 14 Feb 2003, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>
>> I tried an experiment recently where I turned on ftp access to the
>> cygwin download directory on sources.redhat.com.  The result seemed
>> to be that people started downloading cygwin's package .tar.bz2 files
>> directly and (somehow) used tar to extract files rather than running
>> setup.exe.
>>
>> So, that experiment was a bad idea.  I turned off access again.  Yet, I
>> still have the feeling that many people are downloading packages
>> directly (from mirrors I suppose) and then we get to experience the
>> maddening "I downloaded foo and it gives me an error about missing bar.
>> What in the world could possibly be the problem????"
>>
>> Can anyone offer any explanation about this?  Or maybe convince me that
>> I'm wrong in noticing this trend?  I suppose that it is possible that
>> we are now hitting a newer stupider brand of user who just can't be
>> bothered to read the cygwin web site and click on a link to download
>> but I'm wondering if there is another explanation.  Maybe there is
>> a popular web page out there with wrong advice or something...
>>
>> cgf
>
>Well, guess what comes up first on a Google search for "cygwin install"?
>See for yourself: <http://google.com/search?q=cygwin+install> (just in
>case, the first match I get is <http://www.woodsoup.org/projs/ORKiD/basic.htm>,
>last updated on March 24, 2000). :-(

This is interesting but it doesn't really explain the problem since the site
is so outdated.  sourceware.cygnus.com doesn't even exist anymore.

>I don't know if there's anything that can be done about it, though...

How about if every able-bodied cygwin-mailing-list person sends email to this
person and asks them to take the site down.

FWIW, I've recently sent email to Mumit Khan for similar reasons.  His
"ancient" gnu-win32 site still shows up in google and some of the
outdated techniques espoused there demonstrably cause confusion.

cgf

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