On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 10:16 AM, Ceri Davies <ceri at submonkey.net> wrote: > On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 09:30:32PM -0700, John Plocher wrote: > > > The IPS/pkg repository and associated packaging system must > > have the following abilities: > > > > 1. It must allow packages to be tagged with an "expectation > > level" taken from the (evolving) set of > > [Sandbox, Prototype, Experimental, Preferred, Core] > > 2. It must treat these expectation levels as namespace > > qualifiers, such that packages of the same name may > > coexist in a repository with different expectation levels > > 3. It must allow the user to select which expectation > > level(s) to choose packages from for installation
I'm rather uncomfortable with the attempts here to seemingly codify "as a rule", the capabilities of a software product (ips in this case). > 4. It must allow for some mechanism for a build to be > reproduced exactly at any given future time, whether > that be explicit versioning and infinite retention, > or preferably just allowing users to clone and retain > versioned repositories on local optical media as well > as on "the network". > > The idea that everything I need to rebuild a system may not be available > is worrying. As nice as that would be to have, I don't think it is a realistic requirement. For one, ips does not have a build system since every consolidation has chosen their own way "of doing things." The packaging system is there to deliver software; nothing else. If you are instead asking that all the materials to reproduce the software be available, that is also not realistic since some of the materials used to build the resulting package may not be redistributable to the general public or may be distributed somewhere else. If you are instead stating that the repository must contain all versions of software ever produced so that you can reproduce the entire contents of "Solaris Next Release 4", that seems to be outside the scope of ARC and better related to Sun's support policies, etc. Cheers, -- Shawn Walker "To err is human -- and to blame it on a computer is even more so." - Robert Orben
