>> 1. Files are made available in this order:
>> patch.bz2 tarball.bz2 patch.gz tarball.gz
>
> Which is likely to result in a lot of downloads of patch.bz2 and
> the immediately previous tarball.
Yes, but not by the same people. Those downloading the patch.bz2
have already learned to use the newer tools, so they only need the
previous tarball after they mess up their source tree. Those downloading
the tarball will have additional incentive to learn about the newer tools.
Maybe even get rid of tarball.gz files. They are just too tempting
for people that don't want to learn, and they eat bandwidth.
Eliminating them is like getting 20% more bandwith for free, and
maybe more if people prefer patch.gz files over tarball.bz2 files.
There is a common misconception about patch files: many people don't
realize that you can use a patch file to get from 2.1.109 to 2.1.110.
I'm not kidding! They think that it is some kind of quick hack, and
that they must download the whole tarball to get the "Real Thing".
It took me a dozen emails to correct that misconception once, in part
because I couldn't imagine somebody would have that strange idea.
They were complaining about how Linux releases are too frequent and
hard to keep track of, unlike FreeBSD -- they thought.
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