World: r3wp

They are offered as torrents. But it saves only maybe a quarter of 
the costs, because more than half the people download the regular 
files - and that only if the audience is good

We could drop the regular files, but Windows doesn't come with BitTorrent 
built-in, so I don't see how that would not limit the audience more 
severely than just using the most popular strong packer

People who refuse to do a simple automatic installation of an extra 
package to get at our products are clearly not in our target audience

This is a set of operating systems. It's not a can of coke with an 
open-here sign

I thought you wanted feedback

If I download any other linux distro, I can get it as an ISO image 
etc.

Why be so pendantic ?

more people have bittorrent than 7zip though - but i was kidding 
:) however you should probably use torrent (maybe even trackerless) 
if you want to save bandwidth.

Am I afraid of BitTorrent for no good reason?  I've got it installed 
but it's disabled.

I did download as a torrent.  I think Kaj is storing stuff on S3 
which has a torrent feature.

Yes

So, S3 is also the peer ?

Yes

The discussion goes like this. You don't feel like reading the instructions 
and installing an extra tool. I'm saying we're trying not to go broke 
due to giving away our software. I'm sorry, but we're going to choose 
for ourselves in this matter

I'm saying that you need to lower the barriers to entry until you 
have a large enough user base that you don't have to care anymore.

Also, we've been offering some 7-zipped downloads for a few years 
now. As I said, when I released server, the first comment was a compliment 
on my using 7-Zip. People here are the only ones to ever complain

the point of having a vmware image is so that noob users can get 
up and running immediately

Precisely .. because you're already talking to the converted.

we represent the masses

unwashed and all

I disagree, there's really no point in offering a text mode Linux 
to anyone who doesn't want to install one extra package fully automated 
in Ubuntu

The people on OSNews are far from our converts

I guess it's now a religious discussion.

No, it's a money discussion. You pay for our costs, we'll gladly 
offer other options

How much extra would a zip file cost?  .001 cents ?

I'll pay that.

Just use Amazon's micro payments system

For everyone making use of it?

sure .. just offer the option

if you want zip .. pay 1c

But I do think it's incredibly superficial that I release half a 
decade worth of work, and the discussion on OSNews is entirely about 
how well I compressed it, and the discussion here is entirely about 
how bad I compressed it

I rounded upwards.

You don't understand. You need to sponsor our zipped downloads for 
hundreds, possibly tens of thousands of downloads

If I wrote some fanstastic treatise in French .. you would complain 
about the encryption method.

Let's be realistic .. how many downloads have you had?

Also, I have the file being served as a torrent on my PC .. I've 
not seen a single torrent client access it.

I don't have statistics yet, but Server must have been downloaded 
a number of hundred times now. Desktop has had up to ten thousand 
downloads per version, of the installation CD. Plus a similar number 
for the live CDs, plus about half that for the VMware images. Server 
is twice as big, and will have far more downloads when we get the 
graphical environment on it

Coming year will be our breakthrough year. At some point, we will 
be published in a big place, and the downloads will boom. And they're 
directly linked to my credit card, not yours

Giving away each Desktop costs us about a dollarcent now, Server 
is closer to two cents. This will only grow in the future

I might add that we're taking these costs for the sake of REBOL. 
There are many places who will host open source software as sponsors, 
and our Desktop installation CDs are still on SourceForge, but we 
can't do that with Syllable Server, because REBOL/Core is included

Syllable is entirely open source, except for REBOL. Once we port 
R3 to Syllable Desktop, we will have to pay for the hosting of Desktop 
ourselves, too

If you have a livePC as you did before, moka5 will host it for free.

Sure, but how about all the other form factors?

We've gone through a series of hosters, and it's a pain. We're consolidating 
on S3 now

I just checked my vmware appliance that does my torrents and I see 
the Syllable server now has 5 seeds, and my share ratio went up from 
0 to .5 now!

Do you have the BitTorrent ports on your firewall forwarded to that 
appliance? If not, you'll get a much smaller share of downloaders

If download violume is a problem for Syllable, could you find some 
people to mirror?

Nah, it's too much hassle, and we want the download statistics

Mirroring is automatic when people use BitTorrent, and we still get 
the statistics

Once the downloads go through the roof, we'll probably put up Google 
ads to balance the costs