Hosting Linux Fest Northwest Videos on torrent

[brett lentz]

On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 10:07 PM, Nigel Jones <dev at nigelj.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, May 3, 2008 4:48 pm, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>  > Mike McGrath wrote:
>  >> On Thu, 1 May 2008, Jesse Keating wrote:
>  >>
>  >>> A team of folks took videos of various talks at Linux Fest Northwest.
>  >>> They want to offer direct downloads as an alternative to the flash
>  >>> based
>  >>> streams available at ustream.tv.  I have tentatively offered (with
>  >>> stated caveat that Infrastructure had to approve) hosting space on
>  >>> the/a
>  >>> torrent server for these videos.
>  >>>
>  >>> I don't yet have an estimate on the total size, but there are 12~
>  >>> videos, all somewhere around an hour in length.  It may be a while yet
>  >>> before they're all re-encoded into our preferred format (.ogg) but I
>  >>> wanted to get the ball rolling here.
>  >>>
>  >>> Is this something Fedora (Infrastructure) would be willing to provide?
>  >>
>  >> So the question is does Fedora offer hosting space for linux conventions
>  >> and things not directly related to Fedora?  I'd be curious to hear what
>  >> others say.
>  >>
>  > I'm not opposed to hosting this but perhaps phrasing the question that
>  > way is taking it out of our hands.  We can say "We have/don't have
>  > space/bandwidth/manpower to do this" but whether it's something we
>  > should be doing seems to be a goals question that belongs to the Board
>  > to decide.
>  >
>  > PS: fedorahosted can contain things which aren't directly related to
>  > Fedora.  Hosting videos of linux-fest talks on the torrent server would
>  > be a different type of resource but not necessarily a different category
>  > politically.
>  My question is:  Does this have any tangible benefit to Fedora (are there
>  any talks that promote Fedora etc)?  If so, then it's well worth
>  consideration, if not, well it's not worthless but it'd make me think
>  twice.
>
>  My 2 cents,
>
>  Nigel
>
>
> >
>  > -Toshio
>  >



I can help answer this one.  I was at Linuxfest NW, and saw one of
Jesse's talks.

His talk covering the new tools that are being used to create the
Fedora distribution was a great overview of nearly all of the
fantastic new tools that Fedora has put into use over the last 3-4
releases.

I think hosting these Fedora-centric talks are of direct benefit,
because it helps add to the available documentation of what these
tools are all about.

Some of the OLPC talks that happened at Linuxfest NW were also of
significant value. The other highlights were probably Drupal, and to a
lesser extent Python and some of the Linux migration talks geared
towards the more non-technical crowd. I have no idea what portion of
these were recorded. I would hope that Jesse would provide a more
specific list of what videos are available.

I think that there are specific videos that will have an obvious
direct benefit to Fedora, and I think that many others could have an
indirect benefit.  I guess the question I would ask is, is this within
the scope of what Fedora is all about?  Secondary to that is, do we
have the resources to provide this as yet another of the many features
that Fedora offers?

My personal opinion is that collecting documentation of all types is
critical to the adoption of Linux in general. Not everyone can easily
read through written documentation. Videos are a crucial resource for
those that are looking for something beyond just the more detailed,
technical manuals that we tend to provide. I think that hosting these
videos, if we have the capacity, is valuable.

This idea gets a +1 from me.

--- Brett.