Robert Rohde wrote:
Of course, strictly speaking we already provide HTTP access to everything. So the real question is how can we make access easier, more reliable, and less burdensome. You or someone else suggested an API for grabbing files and that seems like a good idea. Ultimately the best answer may well be to take multiple approaches to accommodate both people like you who want everything as well as people that want only more modest collections.
-Robert Rohde
Anthony wrote:
The bandwidth-saving way to do things would be to just allow mirrors to use hotlinking. Requiring a middle man to temporarily store images (many, and possibly even most of which will never even be downloaded by end users) just wastes bandwidth.
There is already a way to instruct a wiki to use images from a foreign wiki as they are needed. With proper caching.
On 1.16 it will even be much easier, as you will only need to set $wgUseInstantCommons = true; to use Wikimedia Commons images. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgUseInstantCommons