On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 10:45 AM, David Landgren <da...@landgren.net> wrote: > On 31/03/2010 06:52, David Nicol wrote: > >> new proposal: Make modules "pay rent" in order to remain on a mirror. >> Rent could be in the form of actual user interest, or good reviews. >> >> Use as a dependency could count as rent. > > Put a value tag on things and people will game the system to ensure their > files are up on top. Doomed to failure.
I'm not suggesting that there be any kind of who-is-on-top game, the game is who falls out the bottom. If someone cares enough to want to game the system to ensure their files don't fall out, those files will surely stay. "pay rent" here is intended to mean something like tracking usage over a long period in order to authoritatively identify "old and useless" based on metrics and a policy. Especially combined with a Dnews-like trick file server that's really a cache and only stores things people actually ask it for, which responds to the OP's pain as I understand it, which is a frustration that their CPAN mirror contains a lot of cruft. Although it still isn't clear why that is a problem. Purpose-based partitioning could be performed like deferred sidewalks: put the pavement where the students make the trails in the grass.
