[toomuchtodo]

Is the code that runs the frontend of the IA open source? I'd be interested in contributing to that, so when requests for certain objects are creating excessive load, a response status code is provided to indicate so, and the alternate URI returned is a magnet link for the object.

EDIT: It appears an HTTP 303 status code accomplishes this

[greglindahl]

503, we return the standard 503 code. Remember that most of our users don't know what BitTorrent is, and would prefer that the archive Just Worked.

[toomuchtodo]

Right! I'm not interested in breaking the Internet Archive, and I'd expect it to move to IPFS [1] eventually (content addressable web) [2]. If/when/how that happens, I'd expect traditional http tooling to still work (curl, wget, etc), which is why I went looking for a status code that indicates an alternate path for the resource/content.

That's why my above comment kept getting edited as I did some more research. 503 is an ugly failure. 429 tells the client to back off, but it doesn't provide a fallback to still get the content. 303 does.

I thought this train of thought was in line with Brewster's blog post [2]. Apologies for the confusion!

[1] https://ipfs.io/

[2] http://brewster.kahle.org/2015/08/11/locking-the-web-open-a-...