Metalink News: 02 Mar 2007
anthon...@gmail.com
cURL and Linux Mint downloads
Metamirrors!
Geospatial Semantic Web Blog: "Metalink unifies Internet downloads."
KDE Commit Digest: KGet in KDE4 with Metalink support.
Slashdot: "Metalinks Tries to Simplify Downloads."
Ubuntu Feature Spec: Metalink for ISO downloads
Semantic Focus: Metalink combines FTP and HTTP with optional P2P.
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Hampus Wessman has created a cross platform Metalink Editor with a
GUI. Please check it out and send in feedback and suggestions!
http://hampus.vox.nu/metalink/
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cURL and Linux Mint have Metalinks available for their downloads:
http://curl.haxx.se/download.html
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.html
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Metamirrors allows you to create .metalinks by submitting checksum
files (there's even a Firefox extension for doing so).
Try it out, it's really easy!
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Geospatial Semantic Web Blog: "Metalink unifies Internet downloads."
One of the best blog posts on Metalink:
"Metalink solves the first problem - how to find the most speedy way
to download a file - by grouping different download protocols into one
protocol. This enables Metalink clients to automatically switch
between different mirror servers without explicit user instructions...
In the above example, not only multiple server information is
described but also meta-data (e.g., the location of the server,
document tags and license). Although this information is not in RDF,
but it's clear that it provides expressive description about file
downloads. I imagine this information can be consumed by Metalink
clients to build up smart search capabilities and maybe recommend
files to users.
I'm quite excited about Metalink. While there is no guarantee that
Metalink will revolutionize Internet file downloads, but its use of
markup languages to describe information on the Web and its attempt to
shield users from heterogeneous download protocols are signs of the
emerging Semantic Web."
http://www.geospatialsemanticweb.com/2007/02/25/metalink-unifies-internet-downloads
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KDE Commit Digest: KGet in KDE4 with Metalink support.
The first part is on KGet, which now has Metalink support in
development, to be released with KDE 4.
http://commit-digest.org/issues/2007-02-25/
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Slashdot: "Metalinks Tries to Simplify Downloads."
"Metalinks collect information about files in an XML format used by
programs that download. The information includes mirror lists, ways to
retrieve the file on P2P networks, checksums for verifying and
correcting downloads, operating system, language, and other details.
Using Metalinks details the Free Software programs you can use to
download them with. There are also clients on Mac and Windows. With a
list of multiple ways to download a file, programs can switch to
another method if one goes down. Or a file can be downloaded from
multiple mirrors at once, usually making the download go much faster.
Downloads can be repaired during transfer to guarantee no errors. All
this makes things automatic which are usually not possible or at least
difficult, and increases efficiency, availability, and reliability
over regular download links. OpenOffice.org, openSUSE, and other Linux/
BSD distributions use them for large downloads."
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/25/144209
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Ubuntu Feature Spec: Metalink for ISO downloads
If you use Ubuntu, you might want to get involved.
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/metalink-iso-downloads
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/metalink
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Semantic Focus: Metalink combines FTP and HTTP with optional P2P.
"Perhaps one of the most interesting thing about Metalink is that
aside from storing server information in its XML-based .metalink
format, metadata such as the location of the server, document tags,
and license of the file are also stored."
http://semanticfocus.com/blog/entry/title/metalink-combines-ftp-and-http-with-optional-p2p/