Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Working out a branching scheme [was: tag --seal --fix]

[Tom Lord]

    > From: Juliusz Chroboczek <address@hidden>

    > SM> The assumption is that people will be more willing to buy another 
disk than
    > SM> to pay the money to make Arch use their disk space more efficiently.
    > SM> And note also that this disk space comes with the benefit of more 
efficient
    > SM> use of the network and even disconnectd operation.

    > Yes, I like arch's default mode of operation too.  On the other hand,
    > the fact that there's no other mode of operation, no escape hatch in
    > case you're short of space and need one file from a different project
    > urgently, makes me slightly uneasy.

You can't get that functionality without some server-side computation.

Arch has plenty of mechanisms which make that server-side computation
easy to implement --- just that nobody's had that much of an itch yet.

Actually, it's not even true that nobody has had that itch yet.
ViewCVS gives you that functionality.  The old larch-based browser I
ran on regexps.com gave you that functionality.  Combine those with a
`wget'-using shell script and you're there.

We can't _require_ that tla provide that functionality for every
archive because that would require server-side expense (by several
metrics) but you can certainly implement it, fairly easily, for
existing archives.

(This is yet another reason to find a way to fund supermirrors -- so
that lots of projects can have this functionality "for free" (i.e., on
somebody else's dime.))

-t