Re: [OS:N:] For reference http://www.go-opensource.co.za/

[Robert Citek <rwcitek alum calberkeley org>]

On Monday, Sep 20, 2004, at 12:35 US/Central, Anil Srivastava wrote:
> There is another aspect of the problem to be considered when it comes 
> down to downloading in developing countries. People cannot depend on 
> the connection and download being interrupted and having to start all 
> over again, therefore, the availability of the basic OS software would 
> be a convenience across the world.

BitTorrent ( http://bittorrent.com/ ) handles issues of poor or dropped 
connections quite nicely.  Not only does it distribute the server load 
to all clients, but it also knows how to resume if the connection is 
dropped.  These properties and others make BT ideal for distributing 
large files, such as ISO images or DVD images.

> An idea comes to my mind. A consensus amongst all of us on what is the 
> basic open source software that should be put on a CD. Then an image 
> being created and made available. Institutions (including companies) 
> could then download the image, burn CDs with their labels, and that 
> being made available through nonprofit institutions in developing 
> countries free of cost.

That's a nice idea, except that it brings up the questions of what 
should be included and what should be left behind.

Why not take that idea a step further: have a list of possible software 
from which people can choose.  Once they choose their list, a server 
packages it up into an ISO/DVD image.  You can even have pre-built 
ISOs/DVDs ready to go with the most popular items.  I'm thinking of a 
model similar to a pizza restaurant where you have a dozen or so 
pre-made pizzas ("The Hawaiian", "Slaughterhouse 5", "Veggie", etc.) 
and also where you can make your own ("cheese plus choose any 5 
toppings from this list").

The question then becomes who maintains the database with copies of (or 
links to) the latest binaries, source, and documentation?

BTW, GnuWinII has such a database which is maintained by volunteers 
from around the world:
  http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/
What they don't have (at least from what I can tell) is the method of 
creating custom ISOs/DVDs for users.

Regards,
- Robert
http://www.cwelug.org