Re: [gentoo-nfp] Social contract and its effect on vendors and service delivery.

[Roy Bamford]

On 2020.06.26 21:17, Alec Warner wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The infrastructure team often receives feedback that services are
> slow. One
> idea we have to improve service delivery for users is to offer edge
> connectivity closer to users. We generally have two choices here:
>   - We can build out an edge by buying machines in various data
> centers;
> installing a reverse proxy on them, and then backhauling the traffic
> to our
> service origin.
>  - We can buy these services from many different CDN providers who
> have
> already done the first step; for a nominal fee[0].
>
> Is it against the social contract to purchase these CDN services?
> Is it against the social contract to purchase these CDN services, even
> if
> the services are provided via open source software?
>
> -A
>
> [0] I'm not intending to have a fiscal argument; there are obvious
> tradeoffs between buy / build and money. I'm interested in the social
> contract only for the moment.
> -A
>


Alec,

As with other things, the key concept is dependency.

Perform the thought experiment oy adding these services to Gentoo,
and asking how does Gentoo work now?

Now take them away again and ask the question again.
If Gentoo still works, there is clearly no "dependency".

That test must pass but its not sufficient.
We also need to ensure that Gentoo does not become dependant
accidentality due to other subsequent changes in Gentoo.

In the case of CDN, its an add on extra for our users. Nothing
goes away. Its difficult to see how Gentoo could  become dependant
accidentality too.


-- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(Neddyseagoon) a member of
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