Re: website & ftp downloads update

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi Marco,

Marco Cawthorne wrote:
> I was wondering about the download links on the page. They still use
> the ftp:// protocol which has regrettably been phased out by every
> major browser.

well, ftp support is intentional, since it is traditional. Every major 
browser... you mean every chrome-clone, since Chrome dropped support for 
it? If Google is too ignorant to distinguish between a hyper-text 
(transfer protocol) and a file... I don't know...
But I guess it is evil that spreads like URL part and protocol hiding, 
https enforcement for pages that don't need it at all, etc, etc.

> There are http links to those, so I was wondering if they should be
> changed to make them more accessible. I remember the old wiki used
> them too.

Yes, good point, I didn't notice since I use browser(s) which support 
it. I just noticed that Firefox followed the bad practice.. they really 
are a google-follower today, how sad.

I think best would be to provide both links like other sites do. Before 
with the php page both links could be generated, I made it now static.

This can be made easier by removing some of the things for the page, 
like "required"... I find it is useless, since it depends on what 
installation you perform and what programs. The same goes for 
stable/unstable version.

I personally often just copy the link and then use wget in a terminal of 
a machine, so not downloading from the browser itself.

Does it even make sense to show the version number? Maybe it is easier 
to do something like:
GNUstep Make  |   <ftp link>    <http link> | Makefile Package

it is easier also to update. No need to explicitly say the version 
number in each link.

I generally want to simplify the download/source pages even more, this 
was more a stopgap thing since we were missing files and had 
inconsistent links.

sources.html and downloads.html should somehow merge in one single page, 
in my opinion.

Riccardo