From: "A.Appleyard" 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.