Hi list and Anthony, I've placed my comments inline below. On Mon, 2009-08-24 at 13:50 -0700, Ant Bryan wrote: > I've expanded the introduction and changed the abstract. any comments? > > > Abstract > > This document specifies Metalink, an XML-based download description > format. Metalink describes alternate download locations (mirrors), > checksums, and other information so file transfers are more reliable > and able to transparently recover from errors. I think the last line is to long, see if you can split it up into multiple or remove some words or "and" clauses.
> > 1. Introduction > > Metalink is an XML-based document format that describes a file or > lists of files to be added to a download queue. Metalinks can list a > number of files, each with an extensible set of attached metadata. For > example, each file can have a description, checksum, and list of URIs > that it is available from. > > Downloads are sometimes offered at a centralized location. Identical > copies of a file are frequently accessible in multiple locations on > the Internet over a variety of protocols (FTP, HTTP, and Peer-to- > Peer). The second sentence doesn't seem to point back to the first sentence, which makes the first sentence seem obsolete. Something like "identical copies of these files" maybe? > Users are shown a list of these multiple download locations > (mirrors) and must manually select a single one on the basis of > geographical location, priority, or bandwidth. This distributes the > load across multiple servers. At times, individual servers can be > slow, outdated, or unreachable, but this can not be determined until > the download has been initiated. This can lead to cancelling the > download and needing to restart it. cancelling is a word my spelchecker doesn't like. Maybe write around it to be sure, something like "this forces the user to cancel the download and restart it"? > During downloads, errors in > transmission can corrupt the file. There are no easy ways to repair > these files. For large downloads this can be extremely troublesome. > Any of the number of problems that can occur with a download lead to > frustration on the part of normal users. "can occur during a download"? I'd also change "normal users" into "general user" or "end user" or just simply "user". (Saying "they" are normal makes me feel like a nerd instead of a geek ;) ) > > All the information about a download, including mirrors, checksums, > digital signatures, and other information can be stored in a machine- > readable Metalink file. This Metalink file transfers the knowledge of > the download server (and mirror database) to the client. With this > knowledge, the client is enabled to work its way to a successful > download even under adverse circumstances. liked that part very much. > All this is done > transparently to the user and the download is much more reliable and > efficient. In contrast, a traditional HTTP redirect to a mirror > conveys only extremely minimal information - one link to one server, > and there is no provision in the HTTP protocol to handle failures. > Other features that some clients provide include multi-source > downloads, where chunks of a file are downloaded from multiple mirrors > simultaneously and frequently results in a faster download. "which frequently results in a faster download". My 2cents, Bram --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Metalink Discussion" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/metalink-discussion?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
