Expiring old pkgsrc binaries

[Havard Eidnes <he%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

Hi,

since space on ftp.netbsd.org is not infinite, and old pkgsrc
branches are not being maintained in any manner, we have been
thinking about how we should handle old pkgsrc binaries that we
currently keep on ftp.netbsd.org.

In an internal discussion the least common denominator seemed to be
that we should not promise to keep more than at most two sets of
package binaries for an OS-version/architecture combination, typically
the current maintained branch and the previous one.  Anything older
than that is to be considered fair game for reclaiming space on our
ftp server.

Later on, this policy may be tightened further so that for a given
os/arch combination we only keep the binaries for the current and the
previous pkgsrc release branch.  This means that if we don't have
anyone actively supplying new binary packages for this os/arch
combination, any older binary packages will end up being removed.

Pruning down our binaries to conform to this will result in some
things being removed from ftp.netbsd.org.  As an example, this is
part of the output from my summary script run on our binary
package repository:

NetBSD-2.0 sparc64
5.5G    packages-2006Q1/NetBSD-2.0/sparc64
4.9G    packages-2006Q2/NetBSD-2.0/sparc64
5.3G    packages-2006Q3/NetBSD-2.0/sparc64
4.3G    packages-2006Q4/NetBSD-2.0/sparc64
5.1G    packages-2007Q1/NetBSD-2.0/sparc64
NetBSD-2.1 alpha
5.7G    packages-2006Q1/NetBSD-2.1/alpha
4.0G    packages-2006Q2/NetBSD-2.1/alpha
5.8G    packages-2006Q3/NetBSD-2.1/alpha
5.0G    packages-2007Q1/NetBSD-2.1/alpha

For some reason there is no 2006Q4 NetBSD-2.1/alpha binary packages (I
was slacking?), which means that for now we'll keep the 2006Q3
binaries, but remove 2006Q1 and 2006Q2.  For NetBSD-2.0/sparc64, the
three oldest sets of binaries will also shortly be removed, to free up
space for uploads of binaries for the 2007Q2 branch.

So, if for some strange reason you see a need to keep accessing older
package binaries, and you have earlier relied on fetching them from
ftp.netbsd.org or one of its mirrors, let this serve as a heads-up
that this will soon no longer be possible.  My own gut feeling is that
there should be very few, if anyone, in this position.

Best regards,

- Håvard