Sorting out ftp.gnome.org mirroring.

[Telsa Gwynne <hobbit aloss ukuu org uk>]

So we all remember Gnome 1.2 and the mirrors having a nightmare syncing,
trying to use the same machine that Slashdot had linked to. And I just 
spent a weekend trying to grab the first beta from mirrors, which had 
again not sync'd up. And Phil Copeland (Bryce on advogato, runs
ftp.linux.org.uk with an iron fist :)) is happy to mirror gnome but
can't even find out whom to talk to. And he's not the only one. And 
so on. 

And I think we should avoid this for Gnome 1.4. 

Problems I know about:

We don't even know who our mirrors are.
	People on IRC have said "I have a mirror, but it's not on
your list". Other people have said "That site's on the mirror list, but
it doesn't have up to date stuff." We need to find out.

Where we do know who the mirrors are, we have no contacts for many.
	ftpadmin@ might reach most, but some sites use other names.
I know that one of the UK ones uses wizards@, and has done for years.
We need a way to reach mirror admins to tell 'em stuff.

There is no priority access for mirror sites.
	As far as I can tell, they login like everyone else. If that's
not the correct way, that's certainly the way people who decide to 
mirror are doing it. Or they use rsync. This is the killer actually.
The mirrors are competing with everyone else to get the stuff. We
have to have a way to get packages to the mirrors before the rest
of the world starts abusing ftp.gnome.org. 

Some mirror sites are then mirrored in turn. 
	No idea how common this is. Are those sites in the "official 
list of mirrors"? Should they be?

Some sites had rsync problems this weekend.
	Dan Veillard had to poke rpmfind several times to get it to
collect the lot.

People who want to mirror don't know whom to contact.
	Enough said. 

If there are procedures mirrors should know about, they don't.
	If there are procedures, I don't know of them. A straw poll on 
irc where three mirror site admins were about showed no-one else was sure, 
either. In fact, most people don't even know who has root access on 
ftp.gnome.org, let alone if there's anyone with special knowledge of 
ftp there. If we had a "please register here to become a mirror" form, 
even that would be helpful!

People will not use mirrors unless they are forced to or are very
unusual. 
	My personal feeling is that we should just close off anonftp
so only mirrors can get onto the main site, and people trying to ftp
straight from ftp.gnome.org should get a "here is the mirrors list".
But I know my local mirrors, so I don't use ftp.gnome.org and this
doesn't greatly affect me, unless it's something outside the
/pub/GNOME/ directory. So I am biassed :) 

There may be long-term solutions which take more setting up. But we
-really- need a solution that works in place for 1.4, and ideally for
the betas so that people can actually -get- the betas and report bugs :) 

Telsa