Re: [Gimp-developer] wtf with the download?

[Robert Krawitz <rlk alum mit edu>]

On Fri, 08 May 2015 20:46:43 -0400, Liam R. E. Quin wrote:
> On Fri, 2015-05-08 at 22:04 +0100, C R wrote:
> > > I'd be ok with having two links labeled "Download GIMP 2.8.14 via 
> > > HTTP" and "Download GIMP 2.8.14 via Bittorrent" right above each 
> > > other, in any order. This should also help to reduce the 
> > > explanation for Bittorrent to one short paragraph
> > >
> > > To make this a bit more obvious, I'm imagining something like this 
> > > instead of the current few lines:
> >
> > How about this?
> > http://opendesignstudio.org/gimp/samples/gimp_windows_download_buttons2.png
>
> Close. I'd still put the Bittorrent one first with text like
>
> Get GIMP for Windows using Bittorrent. Fastest download. Least load on the GIMP servers. Requires a 
> bittorrent client. Learn more...
>
> Get GIMP for Windows over the Web with HTTP. Slower but no special program is needed.
>
> Note, I'm repeating "GIMP for Windows" to minimize doubt.

Think about this from the perspective of photographers or other
graphic artists who otherwise aren't particularly tech-savvy.  They
don't know what "load on the GIMP servers" means and don't care.  The
download's really not that big anyway; they'll spend more time
learning about BitTorrent (much less installing it) than they will
just downloading it via HTTP.  It's 87 MB or so; over my piddly little
1500/368 DSL link, that works out to about 9 minutes.  I spent more
time than that just reading about BitTorrent to even comment here.  If
you're asking people to go to wikipedia with a huge list of BitTorrent
clients (which is intended as a reference, not as a guide) and telling
them to select one, you're going to drive them crazy.  If they pick an
adware or malware client inadvertently (or because it has changed
since el Wik listed it), they're going to blame GIMP for it ("hey,
you're the ones who told us to go here!").  Downloading by browser is
simple and everyone has done it countless times.  If you provide an
ftp link, the browser can even restart it if it's interrupted (which
for something that small isn't very likely).

The reason BitTorrent puts less load on download.gimp.org is that it
puts that load on people who have downloaded and are downloading GIMP.
Once you start downloading it, others may then downloads chunks of it
from *you*.  Aside from potential TOS violations and the like, that's
going to take up some of your bandwith, which the wording proposed
above doesn't tell anyone.

You're asking -- not forcing, I know, but trying very hard to
encourage -- people to do something they aren't likely to understand
and can go wrong with in a lot of ways just to reduce gimp.org server
load.  That load could be reduced in other ways, such as by mirroring
on Sourceforge, kernel.org, wherever.
-- 
Robert Krawitz                                     <rlk alum mit edu>

***  MIT Engineers   A Proud Tradition   http://mitathletics.com  ***
Member of the League for Programming Freedom  --  http://ProgFree.org
Project lead for Gutenprint   --    http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net

"Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works."
--Eric Crampton