OT: This is a pet peeve of mine.
As it stands now, each creator of electronic data typically has to post and maintain the data themselves.
How to create (or find) a (thriving) business, where publicly available software / firmware / documentation / data / electronic files are archived, maintained and promptly available "forever"?
Uploaders might pay a one time fee for the initial archiving & storage and upload bandwidth.
Downloaders might pay for the download bandwidth necessary plus something to make it an ongoing concern.
Plus, I suppose it could potentially be expanded with a royalty payment tacked on for pay per download items.
Previous releases / versions would automatically be available, as newer versions would supercede previously submitted work.
Such data would then also be available even if a company goes bust / discontinues a product.
Just a one time expense and effort on the poster's part.
No further on going fuss / muss / responsibility for the uploaders - they get to concentrate on their core business rather than running and maintaining a cyber library.
I'm thinking of something akin to
www.download.com (download.cnet.com), but very much broader in concept / mission.
Of course, this is also different from the classic and more familiar Internet back-up companies and also things such as the various software distributions and mirrors - such as for the various versions of Linux.
Apologies for venting OT.
Where are more appropriate forums?
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