[dcc2] Question about the necessity of multi file sends

[codemstr at ptdprolog.net]

As I'm sure everyone here knows, I've been pretty much against the idea of 
multi sends from day one. The reason I'm making this post is, because the 
more I read about users comments on DCC2, the more I realize, I'm not the 
only one against it. It seems almost everyone sees this as promoting one 
thing, and only one thing, more warez. 

What I'd like to know is, what exactly does the multi send feature do, that 
any archiving tool (zip tar gzip etc) can't do? 

There is only one thing I can come up with. And that is easily dynamically 
generate a multi file send. What I mean is, say I want to download some 
warez. I want to download 5 seperate movies. Most likely, the guy I'm 
downloading from does not have those 5 movies in a single zip file (not 
everyone is going to want the same 5 I do), and it's doubtful he has a 
program that will auto package them into a .zip for me (this could cause 
tremendous temporary disk space usage depending on # of files and users). So 
in that instance, I need to do 5 seperate sends. 

Multi sends changes this. Now, the sender can easily package all 5 movies 
into a single send. He'd just have to use whatever scripting command his IRC 
client provides. Maybe:

multi = new MultiFile();
multi.Add("movie1.avi");
multi.Add("movie2.avi");
..
multi.Add("movie5.avi");
DCC.MultiSend("codemastr", multi);

And *poof* there are all my files in a single transfer.

That is the only thing I see multi transfers doing that a zip file can not. 
And, that is not something I personally want to see added to IRC as all that 
will promote is more warez. If your friend is sending you 50 photos, he can 
zip them up, only warez distributers can't.

Basically, I'm just wondering, can multi sends be justified? I'm sure there 
will be many client developers that refuse to implement it. I mean most 
IRCers do not want to see IRC become p2p so users will fight it. Looking on 
the mIRC forums, out of 6 people who posted comments about DCC2, 4 said they 
think the new file send features will add more warez, 1 said he supports it 
(but his reasons would be solved by zip) and one was undecided. It's not a 
large survey of people, but that certainly is not a majority in favor. On IRC-
junkie, I see 3 more people who said to just use zip, and no one who really 
came out and said they want multi file sends (that's 3 excluding myself).  
And as I already said, UnrealIRCd will include an option to let admins block 
it; I put a little poll on our forums, only 13 people responded, but only 3 
out of 13 people were against having a way to disable it, so in my book 
enough users support having such an option. When searching google for DCC2, I 
really seems that most people either don't want multi sends, or have no 
opinion. There seem to be very few people who actually want such a thing on 
IRC, and they want it for reasons that zip files already address. So if users 
don't want it, and think it will be generally bad for IRC, and it provides no 
real functionality addition, why add it?

It just seems like every reason that has been given to justify multi sends 
can just as easily be done with a zip file. It supports directory structures, 
it lets you send all files in one transfer, etc. I just don't see the reason 
to add such a complex feature to DCC if no one can come up with a real reason 
why it is needed.

If multi file sends were really such a huge issue, we'd already have them in 
the form of zipped files. An IRC client would let you select a group of files 
from a list, auto add them to a .zip (libraries exist that handle all of this 
for you) and send that zip file rather than the individual selected files. 
Then you'd have support for multiple files and directory trees. However, to 
my knowledge, no clients support this. So if no one has really seen the need 
to support it, and most people don't want to see it supported, why bother?

In my mind, the purpose of the RFC process is not to turn DCC into what *we* 
want it to be, it's to turn it into what the overall IRC community wants it 
to be (in a realistic manner). So far, I've yet to see an outcry from IRC 
users to support multi file sends, only an outcry not to support it.

Comments?

-- codemastr