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Popular Linux orgs Freedesktop and Alpine Linux are scrambling for new webhost

arstechnica.com

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Re: Popular Linux orgs Freedesktop and Alpine Linux are scrambling for new webhost

#91

Post by johnklos »

timewizard wrote: post #81
stonogo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are aware that backups and redundant storage existed before the cloud, right?

You are aware that adding backups and redundancy increases the costs both in hardware an management, right? I mean, _of course_ you can do that, it's computing. Perhaps the comparison should be apples to apples when thinking about price.

You're handwaving. Anything can increase cost and complexity. Using Amazon S3 increases cost and complexity.

Set up two locations. Set up rsync. It's still cheaper than cloud storage by far, and that's even after paying yourself handsomely for the script that runs rsync.

Re: Popular Linux orgs Freedesktop and Alpine Linux are scrambling for new webhost

#92

Post by DaSHacka »

dehrmann wrote: post #66

Broader question, but whatever happened to every university with a CS department hosting mirrors of popular distros? I always assumed CDNs replaced them, but seeing this, maybe they didn't.

Most mirrors are run by clubs at universities, typically LUGs or similar.

I'm not sure how many mirrors are run by the university directly, though AFAIK MIT and RIT host theirs directly.

Re: Popular Linux orgs Freedesktop and Alpine Linux are scrambling for new webhost

#93

Post by systems_glitch »

klardotsh wrote: post #75
plagiarist wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's surprising to me that Alpine isn't set for life from corporate donations. They're my first choice for laying down the foundation in a container.

Aside from some major examples, like most of the big tech companies funding the Linux kernel and maybe the Rust and/or Python Foundations in decent numbers, for the most part, corporations don't pay for open-source. That's why they love it so much: it costs ~$0, but generates immense business value for them (in that they don't have to write, debug, or maintain any of that, often essential, code or infra). I can think…

Indeed, we donate to several open source projects on which we depend, but we're also a small two-person operation. No medium/large company I've worked for ever donated monetarily to open source projects, though one did encourage us to fix bugs and submit patches/pull request, which is at least something!

Slackware's the same way, most donations come from individuals and very small companies.

Re: Popular Linux orgs Freedesktop and Alpine Linux are scrambling for new webhost

#94

Post by systems_glitch »

zx2c4 wrote: post #36

The WireGuard project is also in the same situation, due to Equinix Metal shutting down. If anybody would like to host us, please reach out to team at wireguard dot com. Thanks!

Email sent, we can probably host you.

Re: Popular Linux orgs Freedesktop and Alpine Linux are scrambling for new webhost

#95

Post by systems_glitch »

johnklos wrote: post #47

Is colocation knowledge lost now? Do people no longer know how to configure a server or three, bring them to colo and run them? I don't understand how this is a story worthy of an Ars Technica article. Where's the issue? If the issue is cost, slightly older Epyc hardware is quite affordable, and colo deals can be found for extremely reasonable costs. If it's expertise, then all they have to do is ask.

Judging from former jobs, yeah, kinda lost :/ We still colo, it's way more cost effective than PaaS or VMs or someone else's bare metal.

Re: Popular Linux orgs Freedesktop and Alpine Linux are scrambling for new webhost

#96

Post by timewizard »

johnklos wrote: post #91
timewizard wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are aware that adding backups and redundancy increases the costs both in hardware an management, right? I mean, _of course_ you can do that, it's computing. Perhaps the comparison should be apples to apples when thinking about price.

You're handwaving. Anything can increase cost and complexity. Using Amazon S3 increases cost and complexity. Set up two locations. Set up rsync. It's still cheaper than cloud storage by far, and that's even after paying yourself handsomely for the script that runs rsync.

> You're handwaving.

I do not see any concrete data from you either. This is a forum. Typically we'd just call this a "conversation."

> Anything can increase cost and complexity. Using Amazon S3 increases cost and complexity.

Yes, and you get something in return for that cost and complexity, so do you care to map out the differences or are you just going to stick to your simple disagreement?

> Set up two locations. Set up rsync. It's still cheaper than cloud storage by far, and that's even after paying yourself handsomely for the script that runs rsync.

You forgot monitoring. You forgot that when this inevitably breaks I'm going to have to go fix it and that you can't schedule failures to only happen during working hours. You're ignoring more than you're considering.

Re: Popular Linux orgs Freedesktop and Alpine Linux are scrambling for new webhost

#97

Post by timewizard »

johnklos wrote: post #80
timewizard wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Storage is MUCH cheaper Probably because it's not redundant or automatically backed up at any interval. The worst days of my life have been during hardware failures at colos.

I'm puzzled about why you'd suggest such an obviously silly thing. Purchased, fully redundant storage is MUCH cheaper than anything in the cloud when talking about any time frame of a year or more. Obviously you can "rent" storage for a month for less than the cost of purchasing it, but only idiot startup CTOs try to argue a comparison like that. Two sets of storage are still cheaper, and we all have rsync.

> fully redundant storage

Does it automatically repair itself when it fails? Are you sure you're making a proper comparison?

> Two sets of storage are still cheaper, and we all have rsync.

Yes, you can in fact solve 90% of the problem with 10% of the effort, what's your plan for the rest of the problem? Just call in sick?

Re: Popular Linux orgs Freedesktop and Alpine Linux are scrambling for new webhost

#98

Post by likeabatterycar »

zx2c4 wrote: post #87
likeabatterycar wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What prevents Wireguard from moving to GitHub or why is bare metal hosting needed? The code is small and integrated into the kernel at this point. Aren't your needs primarily for distributing Windows/Mac packages at this point?

No, it's considerably more involved than that. For example, there's extensive CI: https://www.wireguard.com/build-status/ This thing builds a fresh kernel and boots it for every commit for a bunch of systems. And there's also a lot of long running fuzzing and SAT solving and all sorts of other heavy computation happening during different aspects of development. Development is a bit more than just pushing some code up…

Thanks for the explanation, I had been under the impression that Wireguard was "done" at this point.

Re: Popular Linux orgs Freedesktop and Alpine Linux are scrambling for new webhost

#99

Post by kazen44 »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #73

>Both services have largely depended on free server resources ... Running on 'large donations' is not a viable strategy for any long-term goal. Perhaps its time for Linux to consider running a tiny datacenter of its very own to both dog-feed itself and give itself extra momentum or inertia from donation stall-out? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food

so, the linux foundation (or torvalds himself, whatever) should run a entire datacenter right now?

You know running an anctual datacenter with all its cooling ,storage, networking and power requirements is a full time job for several people right? Why not put bare metal in someplace which already does that for far cheaper and better?

Re: Popular Linux orgs Freedesktop and Alpine Linux are scrambling for new webhost

#100

Post by dude187 »

zx2c4 wrote: post #88
briffle wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

have you looked into Oregon State University's Open Source Lab? https://osuosl.org/communities/ They host quite a few open source projects there. And seem to be one of the few that also hosts for ARM and POWERPC projects.

Saw that. Looks appealing, but I'm not particularly keen on, "We only require that you keep one sudo-enabled account on the system for us to use as needed for troubleshooting." [1] Do I want to give root access to the project's master git server to somebody I've never met, who is probably a good & nice person, but not really directly associated with the project? In general, I'm wary of places with relaxed enough info…

Seems like setting the stage ripe for a supply chain attack if something like alpine were to be hosted under those conditions
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