Oolite Bulletins

@SimonB
Downloaded. I'll have a page created for you and your OXP's linked there in a day or so. I'll PM you an ID/PW so you can upload any future revisions / new oxps you see fit.

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:

@SimonB
Downloaded. I'll have a page created for you and your OXP's linked there in a day or so. I'll PM you an ID/PW so you can upload any future revisions / new oxps you see fit.

Maybe you could change the extension to zip. This way more people would download it. (My program won't open tar.gz)

Only with the author's permission, I'm afraid.

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:

Only with the author's permission, I'm afraid.

So ask the author.

Might I suggest a much less bandwidth intensive solution, and one that resolves the issue and not the symptom...

Zireael - Download a copy of 7-Zip. This way you can handle tarballs, and it doesn't require every author to change their download for one individual.

And of course you could always ask the author via a post here on the Forum. Sometimes, instead of petitioning everybody else to do the things you want done, it's better to just get on and try to do it yourself.

*.tar.gz indicates that a bunch of files were turned into one file by a UNIX program called tape archiving utility[/url] and then compressed with a program called gnu zip. (wikipedia has a nice article)

GNU/Linux distributes in tarballs because it is important for the archiving to preserve unix file permissions[*], which tar does by default.

An intreguing discussion about what winzip can and cannot do and why can be found here ... for oolite, most of these things don't matter. You can try changing the .tar.gz suffix to .tgz and see what winzip makes of it. You can also install tar and gzip for windows from the gnu software site.

Fully liberated software is preferred over proprietary or merely open.
7-Zip is distributed under LGPL - except for the bit handling RAR, which has restrictions.
Thus it is to be preferred over WinZip - that it is a better program is a bonus.

Note: As far as my oxps are concerned: the license will let anyone repackage the files - though I'd ask you to choose a package that does not limit unpacking to proprietary software.

--------------------------------------
* Technically, compressing lots of similar files as a single unit should give a smaller overall result than compressing piecemeal which is how basic zip works.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/file-compression.htm
But the bulk of oolite is in the images - which are already compressed. Next to them, I suspect nobody would notice the couple k of plists.

Having received approval from SimonB, I am happy to announce his OXPs are now available through his site and additionally through my own site Deep Horizon Industries.

Bon appetit!