Requests from Microsoft IP Addresses

[Paul Leyland]

On 18/06/2023 09:44, Marc Glisse wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Jun 2023, Niels Möller wrote:
>
>> It would be reasonable for any project that wants to pull GMP sources
>> from 100 machines very often to set up their own mirror, do
>> *incremental* updates of the mirror rather than a full clone, and do
>> that at most a few times a day.
>
> I am not disagreeing with that (see my last sentence).
>
>> But I don't think it's the GMP project's responsibility to provide such
>> a mirror.
>
> It shouldn't be your responsibility to not get robbed, yet you lock 
> your door when you are away.
>
> I am trying to be realistic. The current trend is an ever more 
> wasteful use of resources in continuous integration (why would people 
> bother optimizing this as long as it works?). A mirror is probably 
> less work than what it saves, and pushes the problem to someone else 
> (github).
>
> Of course that's assuming the current issue is indeed a very wasteful 
> CI setup.

My view exactly.

I already advised Torbjörn off-list to apply Hanlon's Razor, drawing on 
my 6.5 years experience of working for MSFT (MSR at Cambridge to be 
precise). Subsequent revelations have confirmed that incompetence rather 
than malice is to blame.

Although dumping the problem on someone else a) takes a modicum of 
effort and b) is ethically questionable, it is (IMO) an acceptable 
course of action.  It causes (again IMO) the least amount of damage to 
the smallest number of people.


Paul