(Phys.org) —One may think that free software would be of enormous benefit to people in the towns and villages of the globe where the price of proprietary software is restrictively high. Such is not the case, as noted by Thierry Monteil of the University of Montpellier 2 in France. While the software is free to download, the cost of bandwidth is not. What is more, important but large software packages that enable technology students and workers to carry out their projects may take very long times to download, and may regularly be at the mercy of unreliable Internet connections. Monteil has authored a paper available on arXiv, which presents what may be a cheaper and easier way to transmit large software packages. He has written the paper, "Spreading Huge Free Software without Internet Connection via Self-Replicating USB Keys." The paper describes his concept and how he tested it out. In short, one can use self-replicating USB keys without having to rely on a hard-to-afford and time-draining Internet connection.
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