Re: Re: setting up mirrors

[Suresh Ramasubramanian <mallet@xxxxxxx>]

Atul Chitnis rearranged electrons thusly:

> [Ignoring Suresh "MalletHead"'s personal attacks completely, since they
> have nothing to do with this discussion]

which *you* started with your rather rude and condescending mails and your
gigantic ego, for what it's worth.

Now on to more debunking ...

> Now X belongs to ILUG Timbuktoo. ILUG-T itself has nothing to do with the
> functioning of the resource, but that doesn't change the fact that X is a
> member of ILUG-T.
> After a while, several ILUGs start muttering and complaining. "Why does
> ILUG-T have control over this national resource? Is ILUG-T all of Linux
> India? We too should have control over this resource."
 
Which is why I made that previous comment about overinflated egos.   Anyway,
there is one simple precautions which must be followed.  Having access to a
resource does NOT require that the person control that resource.

The mirror does NOT call itself mirror.ilug-t.org or mirror.linux-india.org -
it calls itself mirror.x.com or mirror.company-x.com.  The domain is registered
under X's name, not the local LUG's name.  Put that way, it becomes the
property of X and/or X's company, and a resource offered to the linux community
at large.  The only access which the linux community has to that server is
_user_ level access.  They dont get to be root or have a say in the
administration of the server (beyond suggestions / feedback which will be
listened to by the server's owner)

The local LUG is going to be a large chunk of mirror.x.com's userbase, so their
feedback is welcome.  However, mirror.x.com doesn't become the LUG's property,
and hence the cause for inter-lug politics and ego-conflicts are removed.  Or
do you suggest that people from the Silicon Valley LUG, the
$american_small_town LUG etc etc get a say in policy / root access to
sourceforge / freshmeat?  (which these mirrors are, on a small scale).  Or, as
sourceforge is sponsored by a corporate entity (VALinux), is it any less of a
contribution to the open source movement?

> Fair enough. So it is decided that every ILUG will have an
> elected/nominated representative sysadmin working along with X to maintain
> the server.
 
Ever heard of "too many cooks"?

> At some point, the finger-pointing starts. "X is downloading MP3s for
> himself!" 

If X owns the server and his MP3 downloads dont impact server performance, who cares?

> "Y is providing email addresses to his friends on that server!"

Again, Y would be able to do that if and only if he was an admin on that
server, which means that he's part of X's company / is X's partner etc, not
because he happens to belong to the same LUG as X does.

> "Z has started a break-away LUG in his city and *also* wants to have
> access".
 
No one needs to belong to a LUG for him to anon FTP / wget stuff from a public
download site, which is what these mirrors are going to be.

> This in itself is not misuse - it is implied misuse. OK, so we need to
> form a committee to supervise the functioning of the resource. Naturally,
> the committee needs to have elected/nominated members, which is another
> ball of wool....
> Ho hum - welcome to the world of LI politics.
 
Remove the LI politics entirely and what have you got?

> Feel free to disagree with me - I am just speaking from experience.
 
You won't listen to anyone who doesn't agree with you either - and you are
_not_ the only one around with "experience".  This is, anyway, an issue about
common sense.  Experience (especially experience in inter-lug politics and
experience in ego trips) is not required.  Or don't you see the point?

	--suresh

-- 
Suresh Ramasubramanian  <-->  mallet <at> efn <dot> org
EMail Sturmbannfuhrer, Lower Middle Class Unix Sysadmin