What would be the possibility of establishing a repository of down loadable things that members of the forum that are logged in could access?
The idea comes from my offer to scan and send out copies of the Right-of-Way booklet a couple of days ago. It has been fairly simple to do and I can fulfill each request with 5 clicks of the mouse so it's not a big deal. But I have had about 65 requests and it would have been nice to do a single upload.
At any rate - just a suggestion.
Wendell - another suggestion
Read carefully the post by Charles L. Dowdell @, Huachuca City, Arizona, Friday, August 01, 2014, 14:08
Just sayin'. It might not be a great idea to establish a repository for copywritten material. On-line no less. [sarcasm]Remember Napster?[/sarcasm] 😉
Dave, have you considered dropping it in the public folder in your dropbox and just posting the link on here for others to download?
Yeah, we'd have to be very careful about posting copyrighted or otherwise protected material. I've often thought about doing something like this, but it would have to only be stuff that is public domain or that which is posted with permission.
> Yeah, we'd have to be very careful about posting copyrighted or otherwise protected material. I've often thought about doing something like this, but it would have to only be stuff that is public domain or that which is posted with permission.
You could also set it up so that anything posted would be deleted automatically after a predetermined time period, say a few days or weeks. That way even if copyrighted material were uploaded, it'd be unlikely that the copyright holder would ever discover it, let alone act upon it.
Or perhaps the upload page could offer two options: the first would be to a download area with a very limited lifetime as described above and the upload would be available immediately. The second would be to a download area with a longer lifespan, but the material would have to be reviewed and approved by a moderator prior to becoming available.
I understand about copyright material. But, that aside, how about a repository for stuff we produce. Such as my recent OPUS-XML utility, or the raw file viewer or the LiDAR point snooper, etc. How about Excel sheets some have created and shared.
How about Jim Cox's VBA add-in for Excel (I think Jim did that one).
Throw in some HP calc programs and I think it would be good.
NGS has a place for such things. They want you to provide full source code for programs however. Some of their stuff I have looked at was written in some flavor of Fortran. I haven't seen a Fortran compiler since college over 30 years ago. I can't even remember enough Fortran to be able to convert it to something in a more modern language.
Fair use & educational exception
Just because something is copyrighted does not mean you can't make use of it.
Much of what might be posted would fall under the educational exception rules.
And then there is the fair use exceptions that can be summarized as follows:
-The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
-The nature of the copyrighted work
-The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
-The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work.
In the case of what I have sent out the past few days it is currently out of print and, in fact, can't even be found or referenced on the ASCE web site, so I did not deprive them of any cash stream nor did I charge for it. Also, this could possibly fall under the educational exceptions.
So, yes Wendell is correct that care would need to be taken with what is posted.
And by way of disclaimer I am not an expert on copyright law so don't take my comments and rely on them.
It's kept up with the times, Wendell. Check out Lahey Fortran. Still the language of choice for heavy computational research, particularly wrt super computers & parallel processing. It even does Windows.
You mean Eric, not Wendell. 🙂
Any idea where I can find such a compiler for Windows?
I think the Fortran I used in college was Minnesota Fortran - perhaps Fortran IV. I don't recall. Lord only knows how many Pascal variants I've programmed in over the years.
I've done quite a bit of parallel and vector processing stuff. In Windows parlance it's called threading. Still the same thing.
As to Fortran, or any other language, it doesn't matter about the language. It's all about the compiler and its ability to optimize. I've written four compilers myself. None of it is easy.
Like I said; Lahey. Ain't cheap. Best never is.
> Any idea where I can find such a compiler for Windows?
At least some of the Lahey products are based on the Gfortran compiler, which is published under the GNU license (i.e. it's free). Windows binaries are available via this link.
I haven't written a line of Fortran in over 40 years, but thought I'd point out the resource in case you're interested.
Forget this idea
It is a bad thought and cause nothing but grief.
