>>>> "Rodney" == Rodney Stromlund
<Rodney.Stromlund(a)wnco.com> writes: 
    Rodney> I posted on comp.emacs.xemacs to see if there was any interest in using
    Rodney> wget to download packages as well as efs (for those with ftp port
blocked).
    Rodney> I got some feedback saying to write an http proxy bases ftp client, but
    Rodney> that is a _lot_ more work than this.  So, I wrote some code to use wget
    Rodney> with the package installation system.
    Rodney> The major addition I made was a new func called package-file-exists-p.
    Rodney> This uses wget to download the file and, if successful, returns t.  If
    Rodney> wget fails to download the file, it returns nil.  If wget downloading
    Rodney> isn't requested (via new variable `package-use-wget'), it calls
    Rodney> file-exists-p.  So, this *should not* break existing code.
    Rodney> This code needs some spit and polish, but I am submitting it now to see
    Rodney> if there is any interest in including it in the distribution.  If not,
    Rodney> I'll just leave it as is and use it for myself.  If there is interest,
    Rodney> I'll add all the customize features, make sure it works with menus,
etc...
There is ...
    Rodney> I'm also cc'ing comp.emacs.xemacs so that those who need it can use
it
    Rodney> and submit changes.
I just tested it under the environemnt below and it *works*. 
System:   WinNT 4.0/SP3 - 160 MB Ram
          Cygwin B20.1 with egcs-2.91.66
           - cygwin1.dll - cygwin1-19990929.dll.gz
           - everything mounted binary,
           - CYGWIN = tty title binmode ntea nontsec
Software:  Xemacs-21.1 (XEmacs 21.1 "20 Minutes to Nikko" [Lucid]
(i586-pc-cygwin32))
                             - 
http://www.xemacs.org/
I would definitely vote for inclusion of your patch as I'm living behind a firewall
and can only use http.
Ciao
  Volker