20 Mar
2007
20 Mar
'07
6:35 a.m.
On Mar 19, 2007, at 9:40 PM, John Foust wrote:
I agree with you, though. As there are many types of users, there
are many types of people who make web or ftp archives. Few are
ready for
an onslaught from Digg or any other form of popularity that brings
servers to their knees, or that burns up the monthly limit on
their $30/month hosting service. Many aren't even prepared,
technically or emotionally, for the senseless repeated downloading
of their entire site. Outgoing bandwidth is still expensive enough
to matter for some people. Their generosity exceeds their readiness
to accomodate the leeches and file collectors.
Yes, absolutely. It's beginning to look like many people want to
make stuff available online just to see themselves do it.
To many, an open ftp or web site is a free resource.
Without any
previous indoctrination in an earlier culture that might prevent
wholesale downloading, they'll sap it until they're tired of it.
And still people whine when people slurp all the bits that have
been made available to slurp? If I see a cool site,
do you think it's OK for me to recursively 'wget' just so I can
leisurely
browse my local copy, and then toss away the bits I don't want?
For that reason, no, I think that's a crappy thing to do. But to
take a "snapshot" of an important archive in case it disappears, I
fully advocate it. Again I call attention to Don Maslin's archive.
There'd be twenty copies of that entire archive floating around today
if it had been publicly available in "pile o' bits" form.
If someone sets up a public server in such a way that excessive
use by others costs them money, fails to put into place any way to
control such use, and then a user runs their bill up by using their
public server, then it's pretty easy to see who the fool is in that
scenario...it's not the user. Public archives are just
that...public. If someone doesn't want that information to be
downloaded, they shouldn't make it available for download. Part of
the point behind our activities is historic preservation, and in
terms of bits, that means making copies...as many copies as possible,
to keep things from disappearing.
The "lemon tree in the front yard" analogy does not work. That's
on private property, in someone's yard. A public server is just
that...public. If it's not intended to be, don't make it so.
If someone is contemplating setting up a server to disseminate
information publicly but is going to be cheap about it, just don't
bother. Give the data to someone who knows how to make it available
in a reasonable way. Unless, of course, the goal *is* really for
that person to see himself doing it.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL