here's a question that i don't have an answer for that i think is a little bit concerning:

let's say you're building a linux distro. (i've built a small linux distro in the past. not just a toy, it got put into production eventually. like, a hardware production line)

if you want your distro to be buildable regardless of what happens with your upstream (network outage, raid, sanctions, whatever) you need to have a mirror of everything you're using to build an installable image or set of packages. that's quite a lot of storage.

if you're using a centralized system for it (maybe it's github, maybe it's codeberg, doesn't matter which one, only the concentration of resources does), then this storage is amortized among everyone who uses it. if, instead, we are in an increasingly decentralized world, then everyone who wants to do such a thing has to mirror the universe themselves.

how high is this cost? and is it justifiable? people worry about carbon impact of CI (rightfully, I think) but what about the carbon impact of decentralization itself? to what extent do we accept it because we can't, or won't, trust each other to not fuck large organized projects up?