Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: Re: GPL and Source code providing

[Lance Albertson]

Brian Harring wrote:

>> don't see why we need to have a public system setup as long as we can
>> provide the source when asked. As far as a I know, the GPL doesn't
>> dicate that we have to provide the sources in an internet media form.
>> They just need to be available when requested. Perhaps we can have a
>> document that explains a process for getting said sources. I don't see
>> the point of creating a torrent/whatever system just for the rare
>> instances that people want the older source. Way too much overhead for
>> something I don't see being used much.
>
> Files are going to have to be held onto somewhere long term- which is
> easier, flipping on lighttpd for the storage dir, or having to dick
> around with making requests of infra (waiting for them to respond),
> and requiring infra to do more work?

Maintaining a service requires more work than just keeping it running.
You have to make sure all the components involved with the service are
running properly, all the security aspects are covered, proper DoS
control is in place, etc. Yes, from your point of view its easy, but
there's a little more involved than just putting something up.

It doesn't have to be infra that takes care of getting those files. We
could get access to a few folks if we need to but, but as stated before,
I haven't seen any request for such things ever since I've been here.

> Upshot of my suggestion, folk have access to the purgatory dir so they
> can go digging through old files from the mirror tier as needed.

I have seen zero requests in the time I've been in Gentoo for this. I
fail to see where you think there's a sudden demand for this. I have no
problem getting these files to people. I have a problem with putting
resources into something that doesn't need that kind of resource
allocated to it based on current demand. I don't see the problem with
dealing such things on a case-by-case basis. If demand increases, then
we can change it. Since I see no demand now, this doesn't affect our
workload at all.

>> A lot of the stuff that's currently in the purgatory area also includes
>> sources for stuff we didn't make (upstream sources, etc). If you can
>> separate those files from Gentoo specific files, then it would be much
>> easier to manag (from an admin point of view). Its not practical to
>> assume we have an infinite amount of space.
>
> As I said, mirror-dist would require modification- something that is a
> few hours worth of work, rather then harassing releng to hack up
> catalyst to build a src image... then harassing infra for a location
> they can upload it to, and harassing infra to push those files into an
> archival location.

I have no problem if we archive them somewhere. I have SAN space at one
our locations which I've started using for archival/backup purposes.
However, I wasn't intending on this machine to become a publically
accessible machine, so I would have to change things around which I
don't want to do unless its needed. I don't see the demand to warrant
such a service.

> End result, infra has to maintain archives.  My proposal, all infra
> has to do is flip on lighttpd somewhere, and I (or zac) do the
> mirror-dist modifications.

As stated above, not as simple as it sounds. Looks easy on paper, but
there's more involved in the backend that just flipping on an httpd. I'm
already archiving the master mirror files (including purgatory stuff)
twice a week so that aspect is already done. But as I said earlier, I
don't want this machine to become a publically accessible machine. That
wasn't my intention when I set it up. I do have some options at this
location if we need to make the files more public, but I don't see the
demand to warrant that.

-- 
Lance Albertson <ramereth@g.o>
Gentoo Infrastructure | Operations Manager

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