Hi Phillip, On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 3:56 AM, Philip Robar <[email protected]>wrote:
> I've noticed that there seems to be a fair amount of dislike for IPS which > leaves me puzzled. On paper IPS sounds great and I know that some serious > thought, engineering and math went into the design of IPS. I also know that > despite the claims of SVR4 packaging fans that SVR4 packages have their own > limitations--especially when it comes to patching systems. (Fortunately my > own scars from my days of packaging software for Solaris faded long ago and > only dim memories of those days remain. :-) Having built scripts to build SVR4 packages, trained others to build SVR4 packages, I can tell you my experience was a breeze. Run a script and POOF, instant package. Run another script, POOF, instant patch. > I'm particularly curious as I know one of the engineers who worked on IPS > and he's one of the smartest people I've ever met. > Some of the smartest people in the world worked on the Space Shuttle, before one blew up. > Are the objections to IPS centered on its design or implementation, or > both? > Moving from a standard to a proprietary packaging system is the first thing to get caught in my throat. > Are the SVR4 fans blind to its limitations and/or ignoring difficult > problems that can't be ignored in a business/enterprise environment? > I came from an enterprise environment, and now in a managed-services environment - pkgadd offers significant benefits. > If there are any objective and reasoned writing or discussion on the > subject I'd appreciate a pointer. > Reasoned Considerations: - http://svr4.blogspot.com/ Unreasoned Rants: - Scripting If Sun wanted to pull out scripting from SVR4, they could have made it default to disallow scripting, and forced the seting of an /etc/system flag to re-enable it again... This was not a valid reason to make a new packaging proprietary method and abandon an open standard. - Sparse Zone Support: I LOVE WORKING IN SPARSE ZONES... the loss of this capability, was just abysmal. This is a no-go for Solaris 11. - Pre-requisites Adding pre-requisite resolution to SVR4 Packaging would have been trivial, in comparison to building a new packaging system. Sun had suggested code for this, OpenCSW has nice SVR4 package pre-processing options, no reason to dump an open standard for proprietary method. - Python Adding this huge thing, to the core OS, for packaging... was rediculous. Would have been better to build IPS in C, add an option tk/tcl interface. Increasing the size of the core was poor planning. Large core pre-requisites is a good reason against dumping an open standard for a proprietary packaging format. - Patching Applying patches to system using pkgadd instead of patchadd could have been done, in a similar way which IPS did it. Once again, no reason to abandon an open standard. There is very little functional difference, between IPS and SVR4, with the exception of IPS not being scriptable and SVR4 not having inherent pre-requisite tree building... and this has been shown to be very easily worked around by OpenCSW and shutting down scripting with a flag. If people want a "facelift" to SVR4 tools, cool - do it. Don't abandon solid code from an open standard to re-write the most critical pieces in order to give it a facelift. Too much risk, wastes too many hours of developer hours from core OS developers, third-party packaging providers, ISV's, etc. There may be no greater reason for the loss of Solaris ISV's than IPS. Dave http://svr4.blogspot.com/ > Phil Robar > > *illumos-discuss* | > Archives<https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/182180/=now> > <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/182180/21175845-b97465aa> | > Modify<https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;>Your Subscription > <http://www.listbox.com/> > ------------------------------------------- illumos-discuss Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/182180/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/182180/21175430-2e6923be Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21175430&id_secret=21175430-6a77cda4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
