Hi, <SNIP> I have no intention of starting a flame war either. :)
> > Instead of switching to to Winzip I would much rather use the "Self- > > extracting capability for 7z format" of 7zip. Bandwidth is a finite > > resource and I am not convinced that using some crappy old compression > > technology is the answer. > > Bandwidth is cheap, and though finite we are nowhere near reaching > the limit. An additional 65MB/download or so is much cheaper than > extra support and lost users. We can always offer both formats for > savy users who want to save on download time. If bandwidth is an > issue on the user side (I doubt that extra 65MB is going to change > their mind about downloading it) that is what the DVD option at lulu > is for (which, I just checked, has sold 8 times since I put it up two > weeks ago). It is *341* MB vs. *601* MB, i.e. Winzip is 80% larger than 7z. If it were 10% I couldn't care less. And an 80% size increase is something that is noticeable at the end of the month. Bandwidth isn't free, in the end somebody has to pay for it. > > And people who are unaware of the existence > > of any compression format beyond zip out there will still click on an > > executable. > > I personally dislike the idea of extracting things as self-extracting > executables, both because I don't think people should get in the > habit of downloading and double-clicking on .exe files, and also > because it means the VM-ware image can't be (easily) accessed from > non-windows boxes. Well, I prefer not to use self extracting executables either, but we are talking about a crowd that is unlikely to know the difference. And you can still access self extracting executables via command line utilities on non-Windows platforms. It isn't elegant, but it works. > - Robert Cheers, Michael --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---