Aminet replacement

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It seems clear that Aminet is dead. Availability since early January has been <10%.

The Aminet administrators have not put out an announcement to the community, it seems safe to assume that it is effectively dead from this point onwards.

Of course Aminet is a valuable resource and this is why its continued availability is vital to the Amiga community.

However there is obviously still a need for somewhere to release software to. Rather than simply complaining about the present situation, I propose to actually *do something* and set up a new Amiga PD site. I'm willing to be a webmaster of, and contributor to, such a site.

I think it is fair to say that when there is no Aminet, nor Aminet-like site, the Amiga is for all intents and purposes dead. As it has been the primary source of new Amiga software for over 10 years.

I note that MorphOS and OS4 do seem to be covered by MorphZone and OS4 Depot, however these sites are completely unsupportive of the OS3.x community and OS3.x software and thus cannot be considered to be adequate replacements for Aminet.

I propose to keep the existing readme format and directory structure. However I'm open to suggestions by others who are willing to be co-administrators of the site.

[Minuous]

Sometimes you can still get downloads.

But uploading has not been possible for weeks.

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The purpose is to see whether there is support for doing this in the community.

Obviously if no one is going to use such a site there's no point setting it up.

I don't have the time and resources to do everything myself, but I am offering to do a share of the work. However assistance is needed, eg. with hosting.

Sorry if you were expecting something to already be running. You could offer to help, that might speed things up a bit.

[Minuous]

90% of the time when I go to Aminet it times out.

And uploads are NOT working even when the site comes up. Obviously this is true for others since there have not been new uploads for weeks. Again, everybody, I'm talking about UPLOADS not DOWNLOADS here!! (After all one can still download Fred Fish disks but uploads to that series are no longer possible, the same seems to apply to Aminet.) Not a day or two here and there as was claimed. And I indeed have written emails which have had no response.

Fine, I won't bother making a new site, obviously there is no support for it.

[Minuous]

>What we're saying (or at least what I'm saying) is that we probably won't ditch Aminet for it.

If you read my post carefully you would see that I'm suggesting a replacement, not a competitor. Ie. I'm thinking of the situation where Aminet availability remains very poor and where new uploads remain impossible.

Now many of you might be willing to use a half-dead site with  no updated content. But assuredly many will not. It only adds to the perception of the Amiga as a "dead" platform if there is nowhere to release new software.

If there is nowhere for new releases, coders will not bother writing new software. If the flow of new software and updates dries up, the platform will be abandoned. It's quite simple really.

I really don't think this is controversial, I'm not sure why there is such a lack of support for at least one of these 2 options: (a) getting Aminet online again; or (b) establishing a replacement for it.

Does the community really feel comfortable with going for months at a time with no new software?

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>Speak for yourself buddy. I'm a coder, and theres always at least some method of distributing my software. aminet isnt the only option.

So where are the alternative sites then?

>To make things even more interesting, it could even be done on a 1year subscription,limited access to non members for free, amiga.org full access £2, with aminet £3.

Selling PD? No, I don't think so. The authors of the software have not written it to be sold for profit, it is expressly against the licences of the vast majority of Aminet software and therefore what you are proposing is illegal and immoral.

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>I don't remember recieving a mail from you

As a matter of fact I emailed twice in the last month, neither has been actioned or replied.

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>As jahc pointed out, we're already accepting uploads (via FTP) again, but it might take a while until we can moderate them.

Hm, doesn't seem to be, I can see WookieChat in there, but no other uploads, and I get "permission denied" on the uploads. Web upload is still down too (empty "Type" field).

But at least it seems it will be back to normal soon, so on that basis I can't see a need for an alternative PD repository.