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Other systems are working on newer inits, notably rubyx has redone the init system with parallel inits and dependancy following (without a binary file) - he rethought the packaging at the same time, nicely done for one guy a few packagers.

rubyx has an interesting init facility and a a good attempt at rationalizing packaging issues, too.

WTF?
If FTP or HTTP protocols have the "capability" to telport the damn file to me on DVD doesn't matter. The fact is that the way browsers and ftp clients operate now is to pull the whole damn file from a single source, and although there is an option to request a chunk and to restart broken transfers there is no auto-discovered-multi-source-simultaneous-distribu ted-crypto-integrity-checked option. Note that several comments here are alluding to pattern of standards and protocols evolving and replacing each other based on changes in the world in which the protocols live, such as this - asymetrical internet connections and wide spread interest in participating in serving content have made single sourced services [conventional http and ftp servers] less attractive. The same way http servers/clients made gopher et al less attractive back in the day. Those two things taken together make things like:
bt
White Water
konspire2b (which hasn't gotten enough attention IMO)
much more attractive for distribution of non-webpage content/files. Why? Tons of distributed upload capacity and interest and relatively huge download pipes - I can dl at 3 Mb/s but server X cannot by itself fill that pipe, but 47 DSL users can.

Please explain in more depth how you think http and ftp already cover the ground covered by bt and white water and/or what capabilities of http and ftp that we are ignorant of, then it might be more clear what you are having trouble with.

Taking time to understand is the key, right?

The http protocol allows requests for partial transfers, but single URL defines a single source from which to pull (or else source forge wouldn't have the mirror picker page) and neither the http nor ftp (protocols) define a mechanism for automatically simultaneously pulling a single file from multiple auto-located server sources with crypto file chuck integrity validation.

http caching is great, but this _is_ different from it and from ftp and from bt. Not like Stone age to Bronze age leap, but what I would characterize as a significant evolution of personal file publishing power.

I guess I would describe it more like a distributed bt server system that has built in mirroring of your favorite sites.

Again, with the source forge example - if all the source forge mirrors used ww, you could eliminate the mirror picker page and using a single ww URL your system would automatically download chucks of the file from all the currently running mirrors that held any portion of the file.

I think any sites that do large file serving should consider using it and that way anyone who wants to could help serve out those files, too by using the ww --mirror command to mirror your files. I mirror the rubyx stuff now and would certainly mirror other software, art and info that I want to support and see widely disseminated.

White Water

(Anyone caring to translate this character?

http://www.rubyx.org
You can use the Rubyx script to create your own custom distribution. This seems a lot closer to the 'new kind of Linux distro' talked about on the Progeny site.

(and yes, distcc is supported, however compilation happens at your end, not at some central location, but it's still worth a look as you could probably build on Rubyx to do something like you describe.)

http://www.rubyx.org/
From the Rubyx page:
Rubyx is an operating system, created and maintained by rubyx, a script written in the ruby language.
The script grew out of the need to create highly specialised linux installations for a massive multi-player online game, but has become a viable operating system for general use. It is working and usable (it's running this website) and package support grows daily.

The Rubyx script actually builds your own customizsed distro with pretty-much whatever you want in it.