Werner Almesberger wrote: > There's been a brief but heated discussion on one of our internal > lists on the change from .ipk to .opk. Let me join the flame fest > by 1) dragging this into this more public space, and 2) professing > my ignorance: > > In the discussion it was explained that the file formats .deb, > .ipk, and .opk are identical, and that this was just what seems to > be a very misguided attempt at name branding. (I only now realize > that the "o" in "opkg" was supposed to come from "Openmoko", not > "other".) > > However, I wonder if there are any other differences beyond the > mere format. E.g., could systems that use dpkg, ipkg, or opkg > actually install .deb, .ipk, or .opk packages (provided that > they're built for the respective architecture), or are there > other differences beyond just the package format that would cause > this to fail or to cause other problems (such as putting invalid > metadata into the local package database) ? > > If .opk is identical to .ipk for all practical purposes, then I > don't think this is a good change and it may not be too late to > revert it. If we look at, say, RPM-based systems, they all use > .rpm and don't try to create arbitrary divisions by using > distribution-specific names. > > I also don't know what is actually the difference between opkg > and ipkg. I just thought it's somehow "better" without affecting > the core functionality. Could anyone please explain ? I think I > may not be the only one confused :-)
"IPKG" is a trademarked name, and you will have to license it for use from George France. (sorta like the Firefox/Ice Weasel issue, but different) There is a lot of contention between community members and George France/handhelds.org, one of them being this issue. -- Lorn 'ljp' Potter Software Engineer, Systems Group, Trolltech, a Nokia company _______________________________________________ devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
