Since the Wayback Machine currently doesn’t allow archiving, what are the recommended alternatives for packaging source archives that are updated upstream without changing the URL?
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The source remains in the cache, so nixpkgs should be fine as it is addressed by the source derivation. Apart from that any static filehoster would work.
Unfree package sources do not get cached, unfortunately.
In my experience, unfree packages have the most unstable download links.
IANAL but Caching unfree sources anywhere other than the original distributor might be problematic as they would be redistributable otherwise, so using the way back machine would just be shifting the legal burden to them.
You’re right, though the point still stands for unfree redistributable packages. Hydra doesn’t build them, but should be legally OK to make a snapshot of the download link by the definition of redistributible.
I’m not sure how many packages we have like this.