Enforcing "DIST_SUBDIR/DISTFILE" uniqueness

[Andrew Pantyukhin]

On 8/16/06, Andrew Pantyukhin <infofarmer at freebsd.org> wrote:
> I'd like to propose a policy to enforce a change in
> DIST_SUBDIR whenever a distfile is rerolled in-place, i.e.
> when checksum changes, but name stays unchanged.
>
> Moreover, effort should be made whenever possible to
> make the old file available for download from an
> alternative location.
>
> This policy will rid us of some fetch-related headaches.
> It also will make it possible to share distfiles between
> hosts with ports trees of different dates. Some rare issues
> might also be resolved as a result of this. For one, ftp
> mirrors could be configured to allow upload, but deny
> modification and/or deletion.
>
> One thing I would personally frown upon is using
> something like "fetch -o othername" to save a file with a
> different name. It looks all right, but it prevents us from
> looking for mirrors in an automated way when master
> sites go down.

Well, if no one is really against, I'll start preparing statements
for documentation and thinking about a way to watch for
"violations". I also intend to go through CVS and find past
"offenders" to prod them about it.

The recent openoffice update rerolled a file in-place, and while
it may seem irrelevant or even beneficial (erasing 286Mb of
the old file), the fact is that it prevents us from keeping distfile
history on unversioned file servers, not to mention problems
with fetch many of us experience.