Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: On hosting self-produced distfiles

[Mike Frysinger]

On Thursday, January 20, 2011 14:42:03 Diego Elio Pettenò wrote:
> Il giorno gio, 20/01/2011 alle 20.27 +0100, Matti Bickel ha scritto:
> > Not sure what you mean: if someone quickpkg's php and needs all the
> > source? Well, they already downloaded them. Better keep them around,
> > since it's *your* binary, not mine.
>
> We do distribute part of our packages as binaries already so we have to
> be compliant with their licenses to begin with. Better doing it with a
> single sweep than trying to come up with abstruse case-by-case points,
> no?

my understanding is that releng already has a process in place so that when 
they do a binary release, they tag all the versions so that our mirrors retain 
the source archives.

> > Same thing, as already pointed out in another message. I see the point
> > in making it easier for them. That's okay. So what you're saying is
> > we're upstream too and upstream's should provide their historical stuff.
>
> This is but _one_ reason, and just another thing to trickle down. I
> don't care if "FSF says it's their problem"; what is it costing us,
> really? The cost is minimal (as we need the archive anyway), and the
> gain is there for many people.

if we needed the archive, then this bullet point wouldnt have been relevant.  
but if we dont need the archive, then keeping it around for some unknown 
derivative distro out there doesnt make sense.  how do you pick which archives 
to keep ?  all of them ?  for how long ?  if you cant come up with a clear 
expiration process, then dont bother.

and yes, there is real cost to keeping around archives we dont need.  i cant 
imagine the people providing mirrors for our project for free are going to say 
"sure, balloon the lists of files we have to mirror all you want".

> Arguing against this is just getting to the point of arguing because
> somebody is doing what nobody did for a long time: taking decisions.

semantically speaking, you make decisions
-mike