Justin Erenkrantz wrote:
Well, I agree with Pier. I'm an idiot, too. I absolutely can't stand SourceForge's mirroring system (which is essentially what that page is moving us to). It tells me that I'm downloading a file, but when I try to download it by hitting the link, I get an HTML file that shows me mirrors where I can download it. Eh, no.To be blunt, any link from that download page must go directly to a tarball not to a page that lists mirrors. I've offered ASF-wide suggestions to the mirroring problem. I still think the best strategy is to do round-robin DNS of dists.apache.org (and indicate that those servers aren't necessarily trusted). -- justin
I like this system better because:
1. It is perfectly transparent to the users. They know exactly where they are downloading from and are given options for alternative locations.
2. It is extremely simple to configure and maintain.
3. It can be put into place NOW.
I understand the presentation issue, and am willing to accept suggestions for improvements. But I won't hold this up for a theoretical solution. There is an immediate problem that needs to be addressed, and a little inconvenience may need to be tolerated.
[Incidentally, this system is still much clearer than Sourceforge. It just puts the links one level deeper. Sorceforge hides things behind layers of redirects/javascript.]
I'm certainly still willing to discuss the round-robin DNS idea for the future, not withstanding my opinion in point 1 above. I don't see any simple way to provide a single URL and still be transparent and allow choices to the user.
Joshua.
