Re: Retiring PHP's Mirror Program

Wow, I actually feel sad to see the mirror go. We have hosted this 
mirror, literally since I was a kid. I've always felt proud of being 
able to give back at least this much.

I hope I can get involved in other PHP projects in the future :)





On 2/27/19 10:27 AM, Derick Rethans wrote:
> Hi!
>
> The PHP.net website has in the last 20 years made use of an extensive
> network of mirrors_ to make the PHP documentation available, and
> distribute source tarballs_. These mirrors have been maintained by
> members and companies in the PHP eco-system for many valuable years.
> However, the administration of the mirror system is often haphazard,
> with few contributors helping out—PHP is Open Source, and this is simply
> how these things can go.
>
> Maintaining the mirrors is now no longer sustainable, and also hinders
> the take up of moving the PHP.net website fully to HTTPS. Because the
> PHP.net team has no access to the mirror servers, we also can't make
> sure the mirrors are up-to-date, and some mirrors are still running PHP
> 5.3 (actually, about 25% still run PHP 5.3!).
>
> It is likely no longer necessary to have a mirror system in place, as
> unlike 20 years ago, it is not nearly has hard as setting up a
> distributed cache system. As a matter of fact, some of the PHP.net web
> site, through http://www.php.net/, already sits behind a Content
> Delivery Network (CDN) from Myra_, which is sponsored by long time PHP
> contributor Sascha Schumann.
>
> With these preliminaries out of the way, I would therefore like to
> announce the discontinuation of PHP.net's mirroring program. Instead of
> having mirrors, we are moving all of PHP.net to HTTPS (and get rid of
> https://secure.php.net), and move them behind Myra's CDN, with the same
> local content delivery opportunities, but at significantly less
> administration requirements.
>
> In the next week or so, I will e-mail out a plan on which steps are
> necessary for this move. I'd be happy to hear any comments on when the
> plan comes out.
>
> To end this email, I would very much like to thank all the mirror
> maintainers for their dedication, time, and bandwidth over all these
> years. Thanks!
>
> cheers,
> Derick
>
> .. _mirrors: http://php.net/mirrors.php
> .. _tarballs: http://uk3.php.net/downloads.php
> .. _Myra: https://myracloud.com/en/
>
-- 
Adolfo García Veytia
uServers Comunicaciones
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