Is there a practical reason a lot of FOSS project don't offer torrent downloads or is it just a stigma thing?

Comments

• db2@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Most aren’t big enough to be worth the effort, either by size or userbase.

  source

  • treadful@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Also, it adds a whole 'nother layer of complexity. Now instead of just a Web server, you need a torrent client and all the CI/CD built up around it.

    source

    • wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Not really though web seeding is a thing

      source
• Ephera@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  For me, it’s a matter of infrastructure for regular downloads being free. I just upload the distributable into a release on Codeberg and I’m done.

  Whatever is needed to provide a torrent is just additional complexity, where I’m not sure it actually benefits anyone.
  Of course, if I wanted to become more independent from my code hosting platform, torrents would be something to consider. But my projects are far too unknown to get seeded, so it would still just be a direct download with additional hoops.

  source
• aubeynarf@lemmynsfw.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Torrents have little to offer when you aren’t pirating bulky media files. And don’t track frequent release versions, code repos, or integrate with distribution packaging ecosystems.

  Is there any practical reason they would offer torrent downloads?

  source

  • ozymandias117@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Windows uses them by default for updates (they call it “Delivery Optimization”)

    apt-p2p exists, but it’s not installed by default, so is unlikely to have enough peers to be useful

    source

    • aubeynarf@lemmynsfw.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      ah, so Distribution bandwith naturally matching number of users requesting.

      I’m not sure if we are as bandwith constrained anymore

      source
• CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  A lot of foss projects don’t make sense as a torrent download. For instance, most of my foss projects are libraries that people who write websites use to compile and bundle the JavaScript they ship for their website. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to distribute this via torrent, since torrents don’t have a lot of the features you would want, like checking for new versions of the software. Because the majority of foss projects wouldn’t make sense to distribute via torrent, the developers on projects that would make sense to distribute via torrent are more likely to vend it via methods that there is more infrastructure for (like a package manager), or is easier to set up and maintain (like direct downloads). I think if you were interested in changing this part of foss culture, your best bet would be to create and publish a GitHub action that would package and upload a distributable to a torrent provider.

  source