Re: [gentoo-dev] The uncertain future of repository mirrors

["Michał Górny" <mgorny@gentoo.org>]

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On Mon, 2025-03-24 at 08:46 -0400, Mitchell Dorrell wrote:
> I've been following the discussion, but I still don't know enough to have
> an opinion. Why was this infrastructure created in the first place?

There's a number of reasons, and they are still valid today:

1. Syncing against a mirror with metadata cache makes package managers
faster, and some simpler tools more functional.  However, this only
works as long as the mirror is updated -- when things break and we
disable one, people end up with outdated repository.

2. We check repositories for major issues, such as ebuilds failing
because of old EAPI or removed eclass.  However, we don't have time to
file bugs and deal with the feedback.

3. Having a single place with all the repositories make it possible to
do some cross-repository searches and analysis easier.  For example, we
can estimate how many ebuilds from third-party repositories are still
using a particular eclass.

4. In the end, mirroring repositories mean there's a copy if
the original repository is removed.  The way we merge things, we also
preserve the history when upstream repository is force-pushed.  The flip
side is that if the repository owner tries to remove some data from
history, we normally preserve it.

5. We provide git mirrors with history for repositories that use non-
history-preserving protocols like rsync.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny


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