07-17-2010, 04:06 AM
FCIN Wrote:I have to plead ignorance as to how the MTMI worked, never really having used it very often, but can't believe that the data can't be transfered to a modern database and put into a web site! I've worked with database software for years and do web sites and I know it's no big deal to do this.
Unfortunately, as gleamed from various posts to various forums over the last few days, the following seem to be the case (hearsay - I cannot guarantee that this is 100% correct):
Original author was concerned about people trying to "steal" all his data (instead of just doing the occasional look-up).
Data is stored encrypted in a proprietary binary file format.
Code is not available, just binaries.
The program have a feature to lock out access if the same IP address tries to do too many accesses
And the original author is not be available any more to make changes.
(**Correction: original author has been found and is willing to assist**)
It would seem that it will not be quite as trivial to extract the data as a lot of people seem to assume.
I know that quite a few people have a strong dislike of Kalmbach, and at the drop of a hat are ready to express their distrust of Kalmbach's motives, but Neil Besougloff (sp?), the editor of Model Railroader Magazine, has gone on record as saying that they have no plans of offering the data as a paid service, and that they know of no "sane" (ie economical/sensible) way of extracting the data.
AFAIK, Kalmbach has not claimed that it would be "impossible" to extract the data. Pretty much anything can be done if you are willing to throw enough resources at a problem. It is not a given that it is a sustainable activity. Case in point : going to the moon cost a lot of money. And quite a few lives (mostly in the USSR). And yet - humanity has not been back to the moon since the mid-1970s. Once the propaganda victory of the Soviet Union was won, there was not enough will to keep funding the program.
Anyways, getting back to Kalmbach and their index. You of course may choose to think that Neil B is deliberately lying through his teeth, but there seems to be no particular rational reason to make that assumption.
Not that I expect that to convince people who have a pre-existing dislike of Kalmbach :-)
Grin,
Stein