[ZWeb] DISCUSS: Moving downloads to SourceForge's download manager

[Paul Everitt]

I believe this subject came up a couple of weeks ago but I can't find 
it in the archives.

Sidnei and I were just discussing the web stats for zope.org.  He 
noticed that around 50% of the bytes transfered were from two things: 
Zope distributions and the PDF of the Zope book (the latter is around 
9%).

He and I thought it would be good to revisit the proposal of moving 
these items into SourceForge's download manager.  Here are some pros 
and cons:

Pros

1) It's good for our customers.  The downloads will be a lot faster, 
especially in different regions of the world.

2) It has better uptime (particularly with different systems around the 
world).

3) It removes stress from an overstressed situation with zope.org.  I 
think we all realize that the more we remove from zope.org's plate the 
better chance of success.

4) We will actually get numbers that show how often Zope is being 
downloaded.  Hallelujah!

5) We *might* attract some attention by being on the SourceForge 
activity percentile radar.

6) The current download pages on zope.org are less friendly, and some 
(maybe not many) people will be familiar with the sourceforge interface.

7) The bandwidth costs would go down a LOT (50%), particularly during 
spikes (e.g. when a new version of Zope is released).

Cons

1) It's a transition and transitions have costs and disruptions.

2) The new interface might be harder for posting updates.  Though I 
doubt it, as the current system is one thousand percent brain damaged.

3) There might be changes with nzo.  (On this, I don't think there's 
any *finished* work to significantly improve the way packages are 
managed.)

4) Some people might think it looks bad for Zope to not serve up its 
own downloads.

Sidnei and I both view this as more pro than con, and are willing to do 
the work to investigate the feasibility of this.

--Paul