Re: uploading distfiles

[Brook Milligan <brook%nmsu.edu@localhost>]

> On Aug 21, 2019, at 2:04 PM, maya%NetBSD.org@localhost wrote:
> 
> Other packages with poorly-named distfiles (lots of github release
> stuff) are using DIST_SUBDIR, they are fetched to
> pkgsrc/distfiles/DIST_SUBDIR/tarball.
> 
> This is probably a better solution for CTAN.

All the CTAN packages already use DIST_SUBDIR.

As Mark indicates, it seems that upstream changes the distfiles arbitrarily even if the contents do not change, and we are trying to avoid failover fetches once that happens.  Under the assumption that upstream continues with this behavior, the tradeoff seems to be the following:

- [status quo] avoid failover fetches by all users by (i) avoiding direct fetches from CTAN and (ii) requiring developers to manually upload distfiles to ftp.netbsd.org, versus

- triggering failover fetches whenever upstream changes and avoiding manual uploads of distfiles.

I suppose logically it makes sense to continue with the status quo, as that puts the least burden on users (who must be more numerous), but that is a pain for developers because these packages are special in their requirement for manual upload.

Are there other options?

Cheers,
Brook