On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 12:32 PM, Rob Weir <robw...@apache.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 12:18 PM, Hagar Delest <hagar.del...@laposte.net> > wrote: > >> Objet : Re: Microsoft Censors OpenOffice Download Links > >> Not to speak for them, but I suspect they would point out the fact > >> that we there are over 100 Apache projects, and they all seem to do > >> fine with distribution via the mirrors. > >> > >> Personally, I'd wonder where this rates with us in terms of priority. > >> Compare to, say, forum stability improvements, code signing for our > >> installers, and further buildbot coverage, where do torrents rate? > > > > Of course it's not a priority. > > But think about the mechanism of torrent: once it's initiated, it > spreads by itself without any input needed. I'm not sure we need powerful > resources for the seeds, we can even limit the number of uploads I guess. > And then let the torrent spread among users. > > > > A forum was not in the field of the ASF scope. The AOO forum is still > doing and rather well, there is a lot of cooperation and feedback when > information is forwarded from on side to the other. So why not make a > torrent a first for ASF? > > > > Please remember that you're handling an office suite, it's not a niche > program, it's something that is heavily popular, you tell it yourself when > you inform the list about the millions downloads. Ubuntu offers torrents > for example. > > > > AOO is popular. Torrents are not. I bet that <1% of downloads were > of torrent, when OOo had them. > > Remember, a common question from users is "I just downloaded > OpenOffice and now I cannot find it". So skill level of typical user > is not ideal for explaining how to download via P2P. > > > If ASF does not want to do new things because no other ASF project has > even tried, then I'm rather worried about the future. Especially when on > the other side LibreOffice has a so efficient team, very good at marketing > their project. > > > > 1. Maybe ask LibreOffice how many torrent downloads they see? That > would be an interesting number to know. > > 2. This is not a question of avoiding doing something new. It is a > question of prioritization based on cost and benefit. > > 3. Torrents are not even new. They are old technology. > > 4. There is nothing to prevent someone from seeding a torrent for AOO > today, right now if you thought it was important. It does not need to > come from Apache. > > Infra could conceivably create torrents for every ASF distro file, probably on an automated basis. Were that to happen, the effort by the AOO TLP would be nil and the effort proportionally related to AOO would be negligible. Of course, this could take some significant setup effort on Infra's part, and if only the AOO torrents were ever used someone might say, "Why are we doing this for only one TLP?" It would be best if ASF could do it so as to add legitimacy to the torrent. Otherwise, if AOO itself was doing it, it would need to be on a respected/respectable torrent server, such that we could point to it and say, "That is the official AOO torrent." Maybe a cheap 10gig VM? Don
