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I do not follow RAS, but was informed of this thread so thought I should say something. I am going to do what I consider to be in the best long-term interest of providing BLIPMAPs to those who use them and facilitating my ability to maintain and develop them, and those are my _only_ considerations.
Ideally I would do the BLIPMAPs processing on my home computer, but I am unable to get a DSL line. At this point I see no alternate solution which I consider _ideal_ so will have to make the best choice I can between those solutions which are available, each of which has different advantages and disadvantages. There are some _potential_ long-term benefits to having SSA host the BLIPMAP processing, inclu2ding having any costs paid by an organization to which many of us belong, costs which may be relatively large for any individual but relatively small for an organization, which is why I have encouraged that initiative which Gary has contributed to, but I emphasize potential because there are also potential drawbacks and at this point the SSA does not have an offer on the table so I cannot evaluate what they may or may not be willing to do. Al has pointed out that the SSA website runs on a Windows box whereas my program is Unix based, but there are _possible_ technical solutions to this including the obvious one of having the SSA purchase and operate a Linux box though obviously that could not be accomplished in a short time frame. Al has kindly offered the use of a Linux box that he has, but there is a cost involved with his use of commercial lines whereas I had been hoping to piggyback on an existing operation such that there would be essentially no added cost to any individual (including myself). There have also been offers of individually-owned home Linux machines by those who have DSL lines, including one pre-dating Al's offer, but again none of those has been ideal so I have continued to search for a better solution. However, I am now coming under time pressure since I will be retiring by the end of July and cannot wait until the last minute to have something in place, so I will soon have to choose between whatever less-than-perfect options are then available.
I am not going to get into a public discussion in this forum of all the pros and cons of different solutions. I will keep users informed of any developments or decisions via the BLIPMAP pages. Those who are interested in truly advancing the BLIPMAPs, rather than public posturing, are invited to contact me individually. I just hope I can get this message posted correctly, as this sort of thing is new to me!
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