Re: Re: setting up mirrors

[Suresh Ramasubramanian <mallet@xxxxxxx>]

Ruchir Tewari [Fri, Feb 02, 2001 at 06:32:53PM +0000]: 

> that's why putting up a mirror site by a LIG member on
> his own does not make sense, 'cos he'll have to pay
> through his nose, without making any money.

If said LIG member happens to work at an ISP, that problem is removed.  ISPs in
India don't have too much bandwidth to spare, but they have far more bandwidth
than the common-or-garden leased line customer.  I think a lot of us here work
for ISPs (or in companies affiliated to ISPs), so approaching our bosses and
selling them the idea would be great :)

> i guess that's what led to the politics that Atul mentions,
> although it's praiseworthy that someone actually tried this.
> it's good to have had that experience in our backpack.
 
Politics dont enter into it at all when the ISP (or whichever person / org sets
up this resource) runs it themselves, without appointing some sort of
management committee from the local LUGs and giving all of them root access.
Also, I am sure that each LUG has several fine and responsible people (Doc
Partha from ILUG-Hyd, Prof Bhat from ILUG-Goa, Gopi Garge from ILUG-Bangalore
to name a few).  

They are the persons who will (at the discretion of the mirror sponsor) be
given a say (in an *advisory* role, maximum) in the policy of the mirror.  And
knowing them (and several other people in various other LUGs),
I can state that they are not the sort of people who will abuse this trust by
wasting server bandwidth on MP3s, creating e-mail accounts for all their friends
or playing politics.

In fact, I am saddened by the apparent implication that any member of linux
india who is deemed trustworthy enough to serve on such a committee will generally
behave like an irresponsible child who has been let loose in a candy shop.

> that's why it is important to utilize the resources
> of universities, big companies, ISPs, STPs etc since these
> people have bandwidth thrown at them at cheap rates.

Universities and Big companies - no sorry.  Most of them operate using leased
lines and are strapped for bandwidth.  Even those who use dedicated frame relay
circuits (MNCs such as GE say) face a bandwidth shortage.

Your best bet is to target the providers - the ISPs and the STPs spread all
over India.

> that's the way the thousands of ftp sites all over the world
> are supported. i think this is likely to succeed, if we give
> it a shot.
 
Agreed.  If the source of all politicking is removed of course.  Even this
advisory committee (much as I would like it) is a bad idea, since it will cause
_other_ people who are not on the committee to start their own round of
politics.  So, if the ISP sets up a mirror and runs it as one of their servers,
(as company property run by management and not by committee) I don't see what
cause anyone will have to point fingers even if its CEO (or whoever) is a
member of the Timbuktu LUG or the Jhumritalaya LUG.

If this finger pointing existed elsewhere, we wouldn't have sourceforge, with
dozens of people pointing fingers at VALinux.  Of course, such behavior is
typical of the proverbial *Indian* crab syndrome, but still ...

> peer-to-peer should definitely also be explored as it insulates
> you from availability of ftp sites.

Already discussed :)  These are a bit inefficient in terms of bandwidth
utilization, and can easily serve as a means of distributing trojans or similar
hacked code.  Especially as several people who use it are likely to be strictly
rpm -ivh types who have never heard of doing an md5sum check :)  When you
consider that such binaries as bind, sendmail, etc are going to be distributed
by this method, you will soon find that rootkitted versions of these packages
get into wide circulation.

If that can be worked out, then you have an excellent idea though.

> the important thing is that the job gets done and in as short
> a time as possible. i hope that we will collectively focus on
> achieving that goal.
 
Agreed.  A lot of us, as I said, work for ISPs (or companies affiliated to
ISPs) and right now, I think there are dozens of excited folks telling their
bosses (who are also likely to be linux users) about this great idea.

	--suresh