On 01/07/2010 01:40 AM, Jamie Morken wrote:
I have a suggestion for wikipedia!! I think that the database dumps including the image files should be made available by a wikipedia bittorrent tracker so that people would be able to download the wikipedia backups including the images (which currently they can't do) and also so that wikipedia's bandwidth costs would be reduced. [...]
Is the bandwidth used really a big problem? Bandwidth is pretty cheap these days, and given Wikipedia's total draw, I suspect the occasional dump download isn't much of a problem.
Bittorrent's real strength is when a lot of people want to download the same thing at once. E.g., when a new Ubuntu release comes out. Since Bittorrent requires all downloaders to be uploaders, it turns the flood of users into a benefit. But unless somebody has stats otherwise, I'd guess that isn't the problem here.
William