Re: Apply for funding for China Guix mirror

[Christopher Baines]

Peng Mei Yu <pengmeiyu@riseup.net> writes:

> My name is Peng Mei Yu.  I am the maintainer of mirror.guix.org.cn.
> mirror.guix.org.cn provides HTTP cache service for ci.guix.gnu.org and
> git mirror service for git.savannah.gnu.org.  It helps Chinese Guix
> users accelerate download speed.  It was an experiment project of me but
> has since become an essential service for other Chinese Guix users.
>
> When I started this project, my original intention was to maintain a
> mirror service temporarily and lobby Chinese academic mirror sites to
> add Guix into their support list before I shutdown my mirror service.
> However the lobby process is not successful in the last two years due to
> the uniqueness of Guix.  Chinese mirror sites only support a project if
> they can periodically pull files with Rsync and publish files with a
> static HTTP service like Nginx.  The reason is complex and not suitable
> to discuss here.  After that, I sent an email to the guix-devel mailing
> list to discuss if we can change the way guix publishes its packages.
> The email thread can be seen here:
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2020-11/msg00100.html
> There was some positive feedback but the final result is still unclear
> and I feel the process will be very long.  That means I will have to
> keep maintaining the mirror.guix.org.cn service for Chinese Guix users
> in the next two or three years.
>
> Maintaining mirror.guix.org.cn requires money.  I payed the bills
> personally at first.  Then I successfully raised some donations from
> other people during the last year.  The financial accounts can be seen
> here: https://guix.org.cn/donate/.  I published details of every
> transaction.  It's in Chinese though.
>
> Within the discussion in guix-devel, someone suggests me to send an
> email here and discuss if the Guix project can financially support the
> China Guix mirror project.  Therefore I composed this application in the
> name of the Chinese Guix community.  It would be great if the Guix
> project can grant some funds for the Chinese Guix community.  It's also
> fine if there's difficulty in doing so.  So please don't feel any
> pressure.  The money will be used to improve user experience for Chinese
> Guix users.  It will mainly be spent on buying bandwidth and storage for
> mirror.guix.org.cn.  If possible, I expect a fund between 100 and 1000
> US dollar.  Although any amount will be appreciated.

Hi Peng Mei Yu,

Thanks for your email, and apologies for the delay in replying. Just to
clarify, are you seeing this as a one-off transaction, or something
monthly or annually?

Thanks,

Chris

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