Re: Size of Debian a Problem? Forget it!
On Tue, 19 Oct 1999, Nick Moffitt wrote:
> Quoting Nathan E Norman:
> > Dude, wake up. Mirrors should have the right to mirror "important"
> > parts of Debian and skip the fluff. Have you any idea what it costs to
> > transfer a few gigs a day at high speeds?
>
> What part of rsync are you missing, here?
Well, there is something else you are missing. While binutils may be
changed every few months to every few days, the world map data isn't
likely to be updated very often. (coastlines change in geological time
scales, not historical ones)
Given that, and a true Data Only section in the archives, the only time
the mirrors of the data section would take a hit was when a new package
was added to the archives. Data files like the Bible, and other
"non-technical" documents haven't changed since their original publication
(Do you know of anyone doing an upgrade to Moby Dick? ;-) so most, if not
all, of the packages in this section would be very static.
Lets stop worrying about bloat, and simply manage it effectively. The
sooner we get a Data section the better. (We have already packaged
somewhere between 50 and 90 percent of the free code available on the
internet, so the code distribution can't do much more than double. That
means that we are rapidly reaching the asymtotic limit in possible size.)
Some have said "Debian is about making the best 'Unix style OS'
available", when we should be saying "Debian is about producing the most
useful tool available". (Linux, after all, stands for "Linux Is Not UniX",
doesn't it? ;-)
I have said it before, but I'll try to rephrase it here: All the great
code in the world is worthless if you have no raw data to crunch with
that code.
As developers we tend to loose site of the fact that computers are used
for other things beside developing software. Some people actually use
computers to view and draw maps! (as a semi-to-the-point example ;-)
Why shouldn't Debian support and supply all of the components of a useful
system, including large chunks of data? Is our definition of excellence
so narrow that it will reject useful additions to the project just because
they aren't exactly "software"?
We have hashed this out seven ways from Wednesday, and the conclusion
seems to be that we desparately need a "Data Only" section in the
archives. How about we impliment it and see how it works? Are any ftp site
maintainers listening? Do we have to have a formal proposal and vote on it
before anything happens?
Come on guys, it's time we all started pulling on the same end of this
load, so we can get some forward motion.
What d'ya say?
Dwarf
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