[Liverpool] proprietary formats @ liverpool uni

[Vladimir]

hi everyody!

just wanted to post a letter i just send to one of my lecturers,
would like to know the opinions on that issue - what can and cannot be done.
so here's the deal:


hi, owen!

you are probably thinking: "this guy is getting on my nerves", but yes - i
am writing to you
about the same issue as last time.
the article "The 12" Single as Medium and Artifact" (week 8 reading on vital
site)
was once again uploaded in a Win32 only format, which can only be opened
on a machine running microsoft windows. it is (!) a windows executable
(.exe) file,
perhaps a self extracting archive, as i understand.
as this is a Win32 binary file, on Linux and *BSD platforms it can be only
launched
by installing the binary distribution of Wine "emulator" (or compiling it
from the source code).
in case of Mac OSX platform - there is no binary distribution and the only
way is
to compile the binary from the source code (what i am just doing right now -
as i am with my macbook,
a bit away from home with my linux desktop).
well, you might say that there are not many people running linux in the
university, so it's just
a single case of mine, but is this what discrimination is all about, i
wonder?
but in case of Mac OSX - there quite a few students with Macs in a
university (and especially
in our course as this is a music course anyway). yeah, if you live in the
halls - you can just
knock at the next door and get the file unpacked, but that's not always the
case and it is an
unnecessary inconvenience, isn't it?
what i really want with this letter is to know for what reason on this earth
would someone
put the article not in a zip file (which is a common practice on uni sites),
but in a Win32 binary?
the same as last time - with *.mht web archive microsoft-only file (instead
of just a simple HTML,
what couldn't be explained in terms of the size of download as the archived
file was twice as big).
i sincerely apologize if my letters are annoying.

best regards,
--------------------

isn't it annoying?


vladimir
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