Re: Deprecating .gz format on kernel.org

On Wed, Mar 19, 2003 at 12:19:42PM -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> At some point it probably would make sense to start deprecating .gz
> format files from kernel.org.
> 
> I am envisioning this as a three-phase changeover:
> 
> a) Get all mirrors to carry .bz2 format.  This would affect the
> following sites:
> 
> DUTH:format=gz
> GARBO:format=gz
> HCMC:format=gz
> IGLU:format=gz
> LINUXAID:format=gz
> LLARIAN-NET:format=gz
> MINET-FR:format=gz
> NC-ORC:format=gz
> PCSS:format=gz
> PROGRAMVAREVERKSTEDET:format=gz
> PUB-FTP-UNIVERSITY-OF-OLDENBURG:format=gz
> RN-RNO:format=gz
> TASK:format=gz
> TELEPAC:format=gz
> TENGU-EASYNET-FR:format=gz
> UNC-METALAB:format=gz
> WEBLAB:format=gz
> 
> b) Once that is done, change the robots to no longer require .gz files;
> .bz2 files uploaded would be signed but no .gz file would be generated.
> 
> -> If we get a complete loss of data here, all .gz files would be lost.
> 
> c) At some point, deprecate .gz uploads entirely and remove all the old
> .gz files.  After that point .gz files uploaded would be treated just
> like .Z, .zip or any other "unmanaged" compression format.
> 
> 
> Now, the questions that come up are:
> 
> i) Does this sound reasonable to everyone?  In particular, is there any
> loss in losing the "original" compressed files?

I don't think phase three is really needed...

It sounds reasonable, but if it's mainly due to space consuption, I
think it would be nice to code a bzip2-to-gz cgi server so that there is
no loss on functionality. This would need CPU power, so perhaps
rate-limiting the sending side of the CGI would manage to keep
the CPU low on use.

> ii) Assuming a yes on the previous question, what time frame would it
> make sense for this changeover to happen over?

Don't know.

Greets anyways, Antonio.