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KD6FIB > FAMILY 02.12.96 14:13l 59 Lines 2912 Bytes #-10388 (0) @ WW
BID : KC7KFE20972
Read: GUEST
Subj: Roots Surname List 2/5
Path: DB0AAB<DB0AHO<DB0MWS<DB0RBS<DB0SWR<DB0FP<DB0SRS<DB0ZDF<DB0LJ<DB0ACH<
ON4RAT<ON7RC<ON4AWP<ON6AR<F6CNB<WB0TAX<PU3DTA<VE7ROB<VE7SRY<VE7KIT<
K7SKW<N7RHQ<N7MGZ<N7WE<KB7CNN<N7QDN<W0RLI<KC7KFE
Sent: 961202/0721 20972@KC7KFE.#SALEM.OR.USA.NOAM
[Copied from the RSL Internet site]
II. HOW TO OBTAIN THE ENTIRE RSL
Starting with this, the September 1996 release, there have been several
procedural changes. Historically, among the many options for accessing the
data in RSL, one has been to simply download the whole thing and dig
through it with whatever software is at hand. This option will no longer be
available. Why? Well, two reasons. First, as the RSL has become larger (I
think it's now over 7 megs), this option has declined in popularity, while
the WWW search at the URLs:
* http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/searches/
* http://www.rand.org/cgi-bin/Genea/rslsearch.pl
and the two search services via e-mail (send any message to
rsl-info@genealogy.org or to rsl-info@gen.roc.wayne.edu for more
information about these) has increased. These options remain available. And
the monthly update (consisting of the new and modified surnames) is still
available for download. (See below for details.)
The second reason, I have to confess, is that I'm getting paranoid that the
whole thing will be "borrowed" and show up on someone else's page labeled
as someone else's work. Both Cyndi Howells' site at
http://www.oz.net/~cyndihow/sites.htm
and my United States pages that can be accessed from
http://www.rootsweb.com/roots-l/usa.html
have been heavily "borrowed" from by multiple individuals many times over
the past several months. Responses when confronted range from, "It's my own
work and it's just a coincidence it's word for word and letter for letter
exactly like yours," to "You mean it's not OK to take all of someone else's
work and present it as my own? But it's on the Web!" to, "It's only code,
it can't be copyrighted, go away." (A good business plan for the people
with that final attitude is to market their own version of MicroSoft Word
and see how long it takes Bill Gates to come after them. It's only code,
indeed.) It's bad enough that this is happening with my web pages, but I'd
find it intolerable if people similarly helped themselves to the RSL. After
all, it's "only" code, names, dates, migrations. And 1000s of hours of my
and many volunteers' time. That's all.
Sorry for the tirade. Anyhow, to get to the point, the entire new RSL will
no longer be provided for download. For a limited time, the last full RSL
that was so available, the August 1996 version, will continue to be
available, but I anticipate withdrawing it in a few weeks. It is available
via FTP from various sites. Just FTP to ftp.rootsweb.com, login as
anonymous, giving your e-mail address for your password, then " cd
/pub/roots-l/family" and " get family.index" to retrieve the family.index.
This file lists the names of the various files comprising the old August
RSL.
An alternate FTP site is at ftp.cac.psu.edu. As with ftp.rootsweb.com, log
in anonymously. Then " cd /pub/genealogy/roots-l/family", "get
family.index" etc.
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