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ZDNET's key takeaways
Open-source repositories are collapsing under the strain of 10 trillion downloads annually.
All the major repositories are joining together to tackle this problem.
While a lack of funds is a major part of the problem, other issues need to be addressed.
The world runs on open-source software. We all know that. But did you know that companies download over 10 trillion (that's trillion with a T) open-source code files every year? According to software security provider Sonatype, they do --and the file repository sites that supply that code are burning out from the demand.
As Sonatype CTO Brian Fox, who oversees the Maven Central Java registry, told me earlier this year, Maven is in danger of being overwhelmed by constant downloads. Fox and company have found that 82% of demand comes from just 1% of IPs. That's because companies are using open-source repositories as if they were content delivery networks (CDNs).
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For example, a single company might download the same code hundreds of thousands of times in a day, and the next day, and the next. What's a non-profit, open-source code repository to do?
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