Re: Some general questions!

Chris Lilley, Computer Graphics Unit (lilley@v5.cgu.mcc.ac.uk)
Mon, 1 Aug 1994 11:27:17 GMT


In message <MAILQUEUE-101.940729125906.352@delphinus.lib.umb.edu>
Apurva Mehta said:

> Q1. Once these photographs/images are scanned onto the MOSIAC server

There is no such thing as a Mosaic server. There is a web server, which can
recieve requests from any web client. Mosaic is one such client, there are a
number of others.

> is it possible for other MOSIAC (client) sites to COPY or
> REPRODUCE these images.

Yes. They already have copied them, from your server machine to their client
machine.

You will need to consider to what extent you are willing to compromise the
quality of the photos you provide access to in order that they are not of
magazine publishable quality, trading this off against the reduced usefulness of
low grade pictures to legitimate users of your archive.

One possibility is to go from an index to a page per photo with a small inline
GIF, the text, a link to a larger JPG and a link to a form. The form has a
copyright agreement, entry fields for name, adress, affiliation etc saying that
this person agrees to these copyright conditions. Submitting the form logs the
details and sends back a high resolution 24 bit TIFF of the photo.

Until scribble input or other digital signatures become available, the agreement
would probably not stand up in court. However, it would give pause for thought
and serve to prevent blatant copying of your materials.

You will need a copyright statement on or leading of from your front page. This
needs to spell out exactly what can (eg, downloading for viewing) and cannot
(eg, republication without written authorisation) be done with these images.

>Q2. What would you recommend in terms of hardware for housing these
> several thousand photographs?

A reasonably nippy hard disk. Depends on your anticipated traffic.

> Does MOSIAC run better on a UNIX
> or MAC box?

As this is part of your Q2 I assume you are asking here about the Web server
rather than the web client. In general, Unix boxes are faster than Macs. They
also run a true multitasking operating system which makes it easier for them to
accept many incomming connections at once. Of course, you do get quite powerful
Macs (PowerMacs) and quite slow unix boxes (68000, 386 PC).

>Q3. Is there a special type of INTERNET (SLIP/PPP) connection that I
> should request for as opposed to one that is used for a GOPHER?

No, just an ordinary internet connection will be fine. That said, if you are
sending out many large images over a slow line, you will have problems. Check
that your bandwidth is acceptable for your intended usage. If you intend running
an image archive over a SLIP connectioin I would imagine you will have problems.

--
Chris Lilley
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