Re: [gentoo-dev] Binary release of gentoo

[Mark Farver <mfarver@mindbent.org>]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 10:34:23PM +0300, Dan Armak wrote:
> The solution for these is a compile farm into which devs can log remotely and 
> build packages. Or it could just build them automatically. But all this would 
> be is an extended GRP set - I don't see the need for that. GRP for 1.4 is 

This is more an idea on how to help mirroring.. but I'll throw it into this discussion since it could
also be used for sharing binary tarballs. 

How about someone creating an module that automatically shares the contents of /usr/portage/distfiles
(or packages) over a peer to peer network like gnutella.  
Everytime someone trys to emerge a package, portage checks the peer network to see if someone
has a binary package already built (with the same USE flags set) and if not it looks for a nearby
copy of the tarball.  This could be used to spread the ibiblio/oregonstate load out a bit... 

This would be easpecially useful for places like my office, where we have several dozen gentoo
workstations, and a mediocre 256kps SDSL internet link.  Since they are all basically running the
same hardware, and have the same use flags set the binary option could be used to speed installation
of new packages. 

The big drawback for the binaries is there is no guarentee they are what they say they are, unlike
the tarballs that at least have the MD5 from the ebuild.

It would be an actual example of "significant non-infringing use" of a p2p network.  ;-)

Mark Farver


-- 
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of
zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
-- Justice Louis O. Brandeis, Olmstead vs. United States

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