Hi Everyone, I guess I'm going to be barging in here with my non-standard ideas and heretical thoughts. Over the last 12 months I've been working on and off a project called AppTools (http://code.google.com/p/apptools-dist). It was basically my attempt to redesign the way applications are installed on Linux; a project which I underestimated the time it would take to complete, just a *little* ;)
The goals of this project was essentially to offer a package system that let you deal with applications in every way you might reasonably expect to, such as: * Running applications from their packages (done via FUSE, a custom filesystem and some sandboxing stuff). * Install applications per user or system-wide. * Perform the above from a single file (you shouldn't need to download a new format depending on what you want to do). * Reset applications that have been run in their package to the original package state (resettable filesystem). * Download applications off the internet without needing to install repositories, but still automatically get updates for those applications. * Do all of this without hiding data away in a database somewhere; it should all be accessible and readable on the filesystem (each application should have it's own directory for it's data). There really is a lot more to it than just the list above, especially in terms of design details. I suggest you check out the wiki on the website above if you're interested in the nitty gritty (of which almost none of it is locked in; suggestions welcome). My concerns with AppStream in it's current format (based on what I've read on http://distributions.freedesktop.org/wiki/AppStream/Implementation) is that it suffers the same issues as the existing repositories systems, except that now you have a single repository format for all systems (which is a step forward none the less). However, it still suffers from portability (can I take my packages and give them to someone else running a completely different distro?), repositories reliance (can I install and resolve dependencies with the package belonging to a repository?) and of course it doesn't tackle running applications from packages (but that might be out of scope for AppStream). Let me know opinions or thoughts anyone has on AppTools and it's applicability to the AppStream project. I think the design principles as they stand are similar and that the code base of AppTools could assist in the project (although checking at "How this will work?" page, possibly not that much; depends on how you're implementing your package format). Regards, James Rhodes. _______________________________________________ Distributions mailing list Distributions@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/distributions
