On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 11:21 PM, Rory O'Farrell <ofarr...@iol.ie> wrote: > On Mon, 17 Sep 2012 19:13:24 -0400 > Rob Weir <robw...@apache.org> wrote: > >> I've recently seen a few requests for ability to download AOO via a >> torrent. something we do not currently provide. >> >> I see that OOo did this for legacy versions: >> http://www.openoffice.org/distribution/p2p/ >> >> According to the scripts on this page, it looks like it was run by a >> "Mike" in the Netherlands (http://borft.student.utwente.nl/~mike). >> >> Is this worth doing for AOO? Is this critical for any class of user? >> Or just "nice to have"? >> >> I'm willing to help seed the torrents if we think there is a definite >> need for this. We'd want a few other volunteers willing to do this as >> well. Of course, ideally we'd have the torrent seeded by an existing >> mirror, but that may not be possible. >> >> -Rob >> > > From time to time on the Forum there are reports from frustrated posters of > repeated bad downloads; these are usually solved after they are recommended > to switch to a torrent download. Remember that in some areas of the world > communications are still limited to modem downloads over bad lines. If it is > reasonably possible to provide torrents, then we should do so. >
I understand the benefits. But don't download accelerators/download managers accomplish the same goals, but are easier to use and are more mainstream? In other words, for 99% of normal end users in a low bandwidth/high latency/unreliable connections, wouldn't a download manager over http be the better solution? (BitTorrents serve another purpose, for cases where both the uploading machine(s) and downloading machine have poor connections. But we're not really in that situation, since we have robust mirror support via SourceForge. We only need to deal with poorly connected clients). Note that I'm not against providing this support. I just want to figure out, in terms of my own personal priorities, whether this is a necessity and some users have no other way of getting AOO, or whether this is "nice to have" where we have adequate, albeit less sexy, alternatives. -Rob > I'm off line (immediately) for the next week - London for art exhibitions en > route to a meeting in Birmingham. > > > -- > Rory O'Farrell <ofarr...@iol.ie>
