Samba is a unix package that allows you to share directories that look to the windows machines like normal "shared folders", so you don't need any special software installed on the windows clients. I would not recommend to use it on a publicly accessible machine, however, for the same reasons you don't use shared folders on a publicly available windows machine.

If you want to get the file off your unix machine from another machine, either install an FTP server on the unix machine and download it using Net::FTP or LWP, install a web-server and download using LWP, or - if you want to have encrypted connections, install an SSH server and use an SSH client library - or do system("scp user@remote:/file/path /local/path") if you have ssh and scp installed locally. Personally I like the ssh client programs from http://www.cygwin.com. If you want to run ssh without having to enter the password each time, you can set up public key authentication .