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On Friday 19 July 2002 04:20 am, Nils Decker wrote: |
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> Marko Mikulicic <marko@××××.org> wrote: |
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> > Yannick Koehler wrote: |
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> > and then |
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> > |
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> > > propose or take it from the distribution system. Basically the |
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> > > same as ccache ;-) |
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> > |
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> > I like the idea. I was thinking of something similar. |
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> > I think it's possible to hash the use flags used to build |
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> > the package and compare it to the package to be downloaded. |
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> |
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> I see another problem with this. There is no way to make the packages |
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> trusted. In the portage tree, every downloaded file is checked against a |
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> MD5 hash. This means, I have to trust the person who build the port. This |
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> is not a big problem to me, because those people are "near" to the gentoo |
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> core, and everybody can check the MD5s against the official downloads of |
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> the packet. |
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Yeah, we need a keyright of GPG public keys for gentoo developers, and a GPG |
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signature for each ebuild (which in turn already contains an MD5 sum for all |
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the source URLs in the digest file). |
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|
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They keyring would have to be (a) bought with a CD ordered directly from |
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gentoo, (b) downloaded from the gentoo website (not perfectly secure, but |
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"good enough" for most people) or (c) obtained in person (credit card CDRs |
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anyone) from Gentoo representatives at free software/linux conferences. |
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Then we could pull ebuilds of the P2P network, check the signatures against a |
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trusted keyring and verify that the ebuild is bona fide, then pull the |
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tarball in off the same P2P network, and emerge as usual (emerge already |
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checks the MD5 sum, the important part is making sure the ebuild itself is |
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trustworthy). |
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There are good performance reasons to consider this approach in addition to |
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the current method of distribution, but there are also good geo-political |
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reasons for doing this: distribution of legally Free Software (as opposed to |
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warez, pr0n, and infringing mp3s). When Hollywood tries to shut down FreeNet |
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we could point to it as an infrastructure that is used for the widespread |
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dissemination of GNU/Linux (or at least Gentoo), and whatever infringement is |
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going on is as secondary as it is for other protocols like FTP and HTTP. |
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The performance boost though is IMHO reason enough to at least consider the |
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idea (though the idea of precompiled binary packages is utterly uninteresting |
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to me, the ability to get source tarballs and ebuilds more readilly, without |
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having the 'emerge sync' fail because a site is maxed out is compelling). |
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My $0.02 (what is that, 0.01 Euro these days?) |
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Jean. |
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