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

[C R <cajhne gmail com>]

I would prefer to keep the simple direct-download link first, unless it is
known that torrenting provides a very substantial benefit to the GIMP
project in terms of server band-width. If it doesn't, or if people are
clicking the current "if the torrent link doesn't work click here" link 99
times out of 100, then I think given the risk of exposing users to malware,
we should save the torrent education for another area of the website, most
especially on the Windows download page, as that is the most at-risk
platform currently.

Once a user has malware, they do not know where it has come from. It would
be just as easy to blame the GIMP project as the torrent client, etc. etc.
If I installed a torrent client on my work machine, I'd have been fired,
and I would not have been able to get half the office using GIMP to be able
to edit my templates.

The more I think about it, the more I think we should just give the option
as an alternative for savvy users. We are not able to provide the level of
education necessary on this page to safely guide a Windows user to the
proper tools.


On Sat, May 9, 2015 at 2:28 AM, Robert Krawitz <rlk alum mit edu> wrote:

> 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