Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (198 mails)

["Rajko M." <rmatov101@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Monday 11 December 2006 01:17, Anthony Bryan wrote:

Sorry for late answer, I've seen message yesterday, but it was too late to 
answer. I'm trying to be helpful and that takes time. 

> Hi Rajko,
>
> > The idea to automate mirror (download source) selection is great, but
> > there is
> > so many details on and around your web page that doesn't help me.
> >
> > Let me explain.
> >
> > 1) Project web page
> >    http://www.metalinker.org
> > gives promisses in the same marketing style as menu commercial sites.
> > All is so great, no problems, only benefits, the life is good.
>
> The point of the site/text is to talk people into trying it out and giving
> it a chance. I've done my best to give info to most of the people
> interested. I'm not familiar with menu commercial sites.

It should be "many" sorry for typo. I mentioned the style where many words are 
used  to praise product and no word what are the limitations. More technical 
details about methods to achieve download will be more than welcome. Open 
talk about underlaying ideas will give everybody different feeling about your 
project. 

The way you did it is OK for commercial software, where ideas how it works are 
hidden from public.

> > 2) All rights reserved at the bottom, sounds so proprietary. No word
> > about
> > license.
>
> That's for the text of the site. What do you mean by license? I offer no
> software. Some of the software that uses Metalink is under the GPL, some is
> commercial.

OK. The problem is that with previously mentioned ,missing talk about ideas, 
it gives feeling that whatever you offer is proprietary. If you would mention 
anywhere that described method is patent free and content of web site is 
protected with some kind of opensource license than there will be no reasons 
for questions. 

> > 3) Downloads are verified for enhanced reliability.
> > -Nothing new for YaST users.
>
> Cool. Not everyone uses or can use YaST in all situations :)

I agree. That is actually trivial and missing feature in many download 
products.

> > 4) No Single Point of Failure (SPOF) like FTP or HTTP URLs.
> > -It showed that implementation is not that perfect and single point of
> > failure
> > ruined some people experience.
> > Anything that comes with a lot of declarative sentences and some
> > inserted
> > jokes, can't give me confidence. Jokes alone are not the problem.

This was explained above. More technical details will give me and many others 
more confidence that metalink is worth to try.

> That is a reference to having unorganized single links to an ISO for
> instance. If the server goes down or is hammered, it will be hard to
> download. A lot of people experienced this for the 10.2 release. Metalinks
> list many URLs, so the clients can automate the process of connecting and
> using them, if some mirrors are down it recovers gracefully, and for
> instance not using some mirrors if the download rate is below a certain
> limit, etc.
>
> > 5) More fault tolerant.
> > -I don't need rsync to repair anything with classic methods like wget.
>
> ? Of course you have to (or do something else), or you have to start over
> from scratch if there's an error in transfer. As far as I know, there is no
> difference in the basic transfer methods of Metalink clients and wget.
> Someone could quickly write a Metalink interface for wget.

The problem is that TCP has error correction and it will request packages that 
are bad. The only thing that can brake download is timeout in transmission 
and that can happen in rush hours on new release. In that case wget -c will 
not start from scratch. 

> > 6) It's a neutral standard that doesn't favor any one program,
> > Operating
> > system, or group, and is easy to implement.
> > -Who made it standard? I can't find references on web site.
>
> The clients that use it. No standards body has endorsed it. If you know of
> any that you think would be interested, let me know.

This is new method and it is far from being even "de facto" standard because 
everybody is using it. If you would advertised it as a 
"new method that doesn't favor any one program, Operating system, or group, 
and is easy to implement."
it will be exactly what it is and no one will complain.  
Well, I'm the only one that said this loud, but be sure that many think this 
way. 

> > 7) OpenOffice.org uses Metalinks.
> > http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/magnet.html
> > I'm removing listed magnet clients from any computer and explain users
> > that
> > they should not install them again. Do you think that anything listed
> > on the
> > same page will gain my trust?
>
> I'm not sure what this means. Can you explain it more? Is there something
> untrustworthy about magnet clients? I wasn't aware of that. Metalink just
> happens to be listed on the same page by OpenOffice.org. If there is
> something wrong with them, I will try to get removed from that page.
 
Google returns links like this:
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,49430,00.html
http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5215028.html
http://www.pestpatrol.com/spywarecenter/pest.aspx?id=453088059
(note versions)
Could be also something like this:
http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showthread.php?t=40161

So after some time spent in research I can understand why OP didn't understand 
my comment about magnet clients. It can be that it was just old version or 
hacked copies that gave me a lot of problems on few occasions. 
 
> > As I said, the idea is very attractive, but marketing isn't. The
> > download speed and convenient automation of process are not the 
> > only factors when  someone uses Internet as a software source.
>
> I'm sorry you see it as marketing, I know I'd be a pretty bad salesman.
> (it's just what I wrote to get the basic idea across, I don't think it's
> particularly good but it seemed ok to me). I think Metalink solves some
> problems and of course that's fine if you disagree :) I only hope that
> people try it out and decide for themselves.

I actually do not disagree with idea and I stated that more than one time, but  
your presentation of metalinks is missing details. 
I would like that you give some technical background how it works and to clear 
legal status. Is it proprietary technology or opensource? 

I have no problem with any technology as long as it is explained, software 
works as described and the price is right :-) but I have problem with any 
black boxes that do something, but even author can't explain details. That 
is, looking to some other posts, not only my impression. 

Present one (or few) clients in more details. You didn't make them, but they 
will make whole idea fly or fail, so you have to take time and present them 
with much more than one screenshot and few links. It will give to visitors 
feeling that whole idea is a serious technical work and that is what many are 
looking for before give a test drive.  

-- 
Regards, Rajko.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx