Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My understanding is that there's no standard way to update a torrent file; you re-roll a new file with the changes. Kinda. You do create a new torrent, but you distribute it in a way that to a swarm member is functionally equivalent to updating an old one. Check out BEP-0039 and BEP-0046 which respectively cover the HTTP and DHT mechanisms for updating torrents: https://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0039.html https:/…
That’s very cool! That addresses the basic update issue, although I would be surprised if there was a production-ready Ruby library for torrents that included these. The state of HTTP(S) in Ruby is sad enough :-) (There’s also still the state/seeding problem and its collision with user expectations around brew getting faster, or at least not any slower.)
I could see institutional seeders doing it as a way to donate bandwidth though, like a CDN that's built into the distribution protocol instead of getting load-balanced to Microsoft's nearest PoP when hitting a GitHub `ghcr.io` URI like Homebrew does today. Or even better, use that as an HTTP Seed (BEP-0019) to combine benefits of both :)