Re: [libreplanet-discuss] The dangers of repository deletion

[Fabio Pesari]

On 04/03/2016 04:46 AM, Mike Gerwitz wrote:
>
> Git repositories are source code repositories and are not necessarily
> distributions---especially if a build process is needed.  Now, some
> people do use sites like GitHub for distributing packages.  Whether or
> not I agree with that practice is irrelevant for this conversation, I
> suppose; but in the case there they use GitHub to distribute their
> package for installation or compilation, then moving it isn't a great
> idea.  But if it's just a source code repository to a project that
> distributes its packages elsewhere, I don't see that as a problem.

But this does happen a lot. The AUR in Arch Linux sources the
repositories directly, for example, and as you said there are some
package managers which also do it (Go's for example).

Not everyone packages their software for a distro, and there are some
packages that if it weren't for Debian's extensive repositories, would
likely be lost forever. There are thousands of programs which only exist
on GitHub, SourceForge or BitBucket.

This is an issue for other sites hosting free/libre works as well, for
example OpenGameArt.org and Freesound.org. I think Wikimedia Commons (or
Archive.org) should be used more often for mirroring.