[Mageia-dev] Mirror layout

[andre999]

Michael scherer a écrit :
>
> On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 08:16:33AM -0500, andre999 wrote:
>
>>> Not to mention that a ratio of 2 mirrors in the USA out of a total
>>> of 25 seems rather odd, for something that admins do not care.
>>
>> 2 of 25 PLF mirrors in the U.S.
>
> Technically, 1, since the other is down ( and should be removed from
> the list ).
> So a ratio of 4%.

Unless you are going to analyse what is down for the other distros, you 
should say 2 ± 1, that is 4 to 12%

>> 16 of 133 Mandriva mirrors in the U.S.
>
> A ratio of 12%.

Again, 16 ± 1, or 11 to 13%
Or essentially the same.

> Same as debian, based 49 mirrors in the US out of 358.
> ( ie 13% ), based on http://www.debian.org/mirror/list

Ditto.

> Ubuntu has 12 out of 62 for isos, ie 16%.
> http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/downloadmirrors

So a distro that includes patent-constrained software has a greater 
proportion in the patent-menaced U.S. ?
Interesting.

> And for packages, that 51 out of 367, ie 13%
> https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archivemirrors

Same ballpark as PLF.

> Opensuse has 22 out of  155, aka 14%.
> ( http://mirrors.opensuse.org/ ).

Ditto

> Fedora has 59 us mirrors out of 259, ie 22%.
> ( http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/ ).
>
> So basically, between Fedora, with a strict policy, and PLF, the
> difference is 18%.

Or 9%.  Depending on how you want to fudge the figures.
But maybe it is because they (in policy at least) exclude non-free 
software ?
And just how rigorously do they apply a no patent-constrained software 
policy ?

Haven't I heard somewhere that Fedora (and RedHat) are based in the U.S. 
?  So wouldn't it be natural to expect that it would have a higher 
proportion of sites there ?

> And I didn't count other country such as Japan, where patents on software
> are permitted ( http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Japan ), and where the count of PLF
> mirrors vs Fedora mirrors is 0 to 8.

0 ± 1 gives 0 to 12%.  Same ballpark.
Also, recruiting Fedora mirrors could be driven by the commercial 
interests of RedHat.

> More ever, the fact that this is hosted by some private and rather anonymous
> company is also a important point. Ie, no .edu or big telco ever contacted
> PLF to host a mirror, while in France and another country, PLF have both.

Considering that PLF is based on Mandriva, and Mandriva is based in 
France, wouldn't it be natural to expect PLF to be better represented 
there ?

>> Also, there are only about 400 packages for i586 in PLF mirrors.
>> Since most are duplicated, I wonder how many distinct packages there are ?
>> Somehow doubt that an unlicenced copy of quotes from the Simpsons
>> (one of the 2 plf packages that I didn't find also in Mandriva main)
>> is going to be a big attraction.
>
> You should look a little bit more closely. For example, libdvdcss2 is plf only.
> So does various emulator, lame ( and related like darkice ), gstreamer-bad,
> etc. There is amule, and similar software. More than 2.

Of the twenty or so PLF packages that I found looking through available 
packages with Mandriva and PLF repositories enabled, only 2 did not also 
have the same version in Mandriva.  (All Mandriva main, in this sample.) 
  That is about 10% not in Mandriva.
So for arguments sake let's say 20% are not in Mandriva.  That makes 
only about 80 packages only in PLF.
Impressive, isn't it ?

BTW, gstreamer*plugins-bad is in Mandriva contrib.

I'm not trying to say that PLF does not serve a useful role, 
particularly for applications which would be better to avoid putting in 
a distro, for legal or other contraints.
Offhand, libdvdcss* seems to be a good example.

Just that I don't think that patent considerations should be - except in 
rare circonstances - a serious enough contraint to consider excluding a 
package from regular repositories.

> I am sure that using a small shell script, the exact number could be found, if
> someone want to invest the time.

Actually I was only talking numbers to indicate that the numbers don't 
prove your point, even if we were to accept that they were a valid means 
of determining the effect of the patent issue on potential mirror sites.
There are too many other factors for these numbers to be meaningful.
For example, large multi-mirror sites may not be very interested in 
mirroring small sites, with a relatively small demand.
And sites at universities could be driven by the interests of a few 
students, who could reasonably be less aware of smaller, more obscure sites.
(Mandriva was dropped from a local canadian university site last year, 
probably because the supporting students moved on.)

And don't forget, we don't need many sites worldwide to serve the small 
number of applications on PLF.

Another 2 cents :)

- André