Kernel.org Needs Some Help, Perl Foundation Got Some

Dante wrote in to say "I just read this on the Linux Kernel mailing list, it's from Peter Anvin, one of the ftp.kernel.org maintainers... H. Peter Anvin writes: "The recent troubles we've had at kernel.org pretty much highlight the issues with having an offsite system with no easy physical access. This begs the question if we could establish another primary kernel.org site; this would not only reduce the load on any one site but deal with any one failure in a much more graceful way.

Anyone have any ideas of some organization who would be willing to host a second kernel.org server? Such an organization should expect around 25 Mbit/s sustained traffic, and up to 40-100 Mbit/s peak traffic (this one can be adjusted to fit the available resources.) If so, please contact me."

In related news, mbadolato wrote in to tell us that "there's a press release over at dyndns.org announcing that they've donated $20,000 to the Perl Foundation!

'Thanks primarily to Perl and other Open Source technologies, we are able to provide DNS services to over 180,000 members of the Internet community,' said Tim Wilde, founder and chief executive officer of DynDNS.org. 'This is our way of giving back to some of the people whose tireless devotion to writing quality software has enabled us to provide our services to the Internet community over the past three years.'

The donation page for the Perl Foundation can be found here

Comments

Dyn Dns.

[ImaLamer]

Wow! Because of this donation to the Perl guys and gals, my check is in the mail.

I use DynDNS, and have been thinking about sending them *something*. I don't have much, but to see them donate a little something in return is nice. Any donation is cheaper than getting a 'real' domain name. Plus *.ath.cx is kinda cool, I wonder if goatse.ath.cx is available?

I just hope all these donations don't go to stuff like strippers. I could be spending my money on that.

Re:The real problem

[cperciva]

kernel.org may be better off not providing a tarball for each release, instead providing some kind of utility that downloads the latest available full kernel, but only if necessary, plus patches

I agree, that's a great idea. But it needs a good name... how about calling it CVSup?

Re:The real problem

[pljones]

You don't ever need to download the tar ball. You've got tar and patch installed. Brew your own:

mv $OLDKERNEL linux
cd linux
mv .config my-config
make realclean
cd ..
tar cjf linux $OLDKERNEL.tar.bz2
mv linux $OLDKERNEL
tar xjf $OLDKERNEL.tar.bz
cd linux
patch -p1 cd ..
mv linux $NEWKERNEL
ln -s $NEWKERNEL linux
cd linux
cp my-config .oldconfig
make oldconfig

Then "going back" is as simple as changing the symlink back.

Rsync is your friend...

[dispensa]

It's been up on the kernel.org site for a while now, and it only sends binary diffs, so it's quite light. The overhead is like 1%, plus the diffs. In fact, Tridge wrote this exact case (rsyncing the linux kernel) up in one of his early papers on the need for rsync. rsync.samba.org for more information.

No thanks!

[Bake]

I'd rather download my latest kernel from a known and reputable source.
P2P is not the way to distribute a critical thing like the kernel source. It only takes one individual with an malicious intent to spread a virus in the kernel itself! Linux has been virus free for over 10 years and I would personally like to keep it that way.

insightful??

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the way it is currently done, and the way it has been done since the beginning of kernel.org more or less. Go to ftp.us.kernel.org (replace 'us' with your country code for a closer mirror -- seriously, it works for any country code) and you should get a different server each time.

It's fun to violate D-M-C-A

[yerricde]

Why not AOL?

Because AOL Time Warner funded the DMCA.

Here's your answer, Peter..

[Bowie J. Poag]

If iBiblio is willing to host Propaganda, i'm sure they're more than willing to host a kernel.org mirror. In my experience, they've been wonderfully good hosts and run a very professional operation. Better still, they aren't hiding alterior motives by hosting free software projects, unlike the two-letter chameleon we've all grown to hate over the past year or two.

As for SourceForge, I wouldnt bother..The company that runs it turned its back on the community that made it's existance even possible. That alone should dissuade anyone. More tangible perhaps would be that the company has only one product (which they cant sell), and only enough cash on hand to last another year at most.

Cheers,

Yes, but FreeBSD...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, Google is big on BSD, not Linux...

Re:chump change

[CyberBry]

You're missing the point, though. To a company like IBM, $20,000 is nothing. They make millions off of open source, so having a few developers on staff contributing to open source project ultimately leads to more profit for them (and benefits the open source community, too).

However, last I checked, dyndns.org wasn't a multimillion dollar company. It's run entirely by volunteers (myself being one of them), and almost every penny of our income comes from user donations. We don't have a single full time anyone on staff to run the service, let alone to develop open source applications.

What this donation is supposed to signify is not so much a dollar amount, but what it stands for. It's a challenge to any company making money from open source. If a non-profit service run by volunteers can donate such a sizable amount to open source, imagine what for-profit companies are capable of doing? Come up, try and one up us :)

The Quasi-Ultimate OSS Mirror for Canadians

[Sentry21]

I would suggest Canadians start using the Canadian Communications Research Centre's servers. They do have the bandwidth, especially to University students (CA*Net III and other academic/research networks) who are probably a large amount of users of the Linux kernel.

Incidentally, just some of the files available via rsync from ftp.crc.ca (which, sadly, has an anon-ftp limit of 25 users):

Perl CPAN mirror
GNOME desktop and utilities
Linux HowTo's
KDE desktop and utilities
XFree86
ALSA Linux sound drivers
Debian Linux
Debian Linux ISO images
FreeBSD
Alexy Kuznetsov's IP Routing Tools for linux
Blackdown's port of JAVA for Linux
CRC's Linux Kernel Archive (I wonder if this is different from the standard kernel? they don't say "CRC's" on everything)
CRC's RedHat mirror
CRC's RedHat Contrib (interesting)
Slackware Linux
SUSE Linux
TurboLinux
CRC's VQEG Digital Video Experiments
CRC's XAnim mirror

So if you are Canadian and use any of these software packages (or the others on the page I linked), PLEASE use this site, it's extremely fast on broadband and even more so to university students. I used it for my Debian packages until they dropped the limit on FTP users. Maybe if I ask real nice they'll give me a login....

The site itself is interesting too. Neat stuff.

--Dan