Hi,
Right now, someone has set up an XDCC IRC bot to distribute copies of ReactOS. While I welcome the move, it raises a question on who is responsible for the quality of those files. Even if the person means no harm, the files can get corrupted/infected by the following events:
1) Download corruption 2) Viral infection 3) Hard-disk damage
And perhaps many more. In all cases, this would result in unusable, dangerous or even damaging releases of ReactOS, which we could not control. As such, I propose a vote:
[ ] Yes, allow 3rd-party distribution of the OS through the #ros-xdcc channel and ROS-XDCC-001 bot. (support and encourage this distribution)
[ ] Yes, allow 3rd-party distribution of the OS, but it must clearly distance itself from officially supported releases (tolerate but do not support this distribution)
[ ] No, only sourceforge and other official ReactOS distribution points should be used.
Myself I vote for the first choice, but I would like the following to be done:
1) Create MD5 Hashes to verify authenticity 2) Set up official communications with the bot's maintainer and establish a set of guidelines.
Best regards, Alex Ionescu