ftp archives disappearing?

On 3/19/07, Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com> wrote: I think we've miscommunicated, let me try and clarify my point. :-) I agree with everyone here who has stated that people who put their archive online should not discourage any forms of downloading the archive. They should ahead of time realize that hosting the archive (and this goes for any kind of file hosting for that matter) will cost some good money and if they don't think they'll have that much money to put into hosting their archive then they really shouldn't put it online at all. Why? Because people who don't have that much money to put into their hosting of their archive but put it online anyways always put too many limitations on downloaders. This causes downloaders to be required to download piece by piece only as needed for the time being often. This is not good for the future as people who are willing to mirror the archive cannot and often the owner of the archive is unfortunately not willing to give people a copy of the whole archive in many cases. So what exactly is the point of the archive being online in the first place? Isn't the idea of doing that such that it will get downloaded by others and thus preserved? But then with all the limitations these people put on downloaders this purpose no longer exists which essentially makes the archive useless. Thus people who don't have much money to put into the hosting of their archive shouldn't put it online because it won't matter if they do or don't, it'll have the same useless outcome unless the person has and is willing to put forward some good money to host the archive without download limitations so that the true purpose of hosting the archive can be had and everyone can enjoy it and preserve it for generations to come. That is the point I've been trying to get across, perhaps this typing of my point is more clear then my past typings and hopefully people will now more clearly see where I'm coming from and maybe even (hopefully) agree with me. :-)