* Peter Tribble <peter.tribble at gmail.com> [2007-09-30 21:16]: > While there exists an OpenSolaris install strategy, that strategy > explicitly does not encompass packaging and patching, for which a > separate strategy is needed. > > Development of such a strategy is sorely needed. Especially given > current concerns over where packaging is headed. We should be asking: > > - What are the future needs that the package/patch system needs to > address? > > - What are the shortcomings of the current system? > > - What steps need to be taken to fix the current problems and address > future needs?
This sounds like a very good idea to me. One aspect that I think has been lurking, but perhaps not made clear, is that some projects are working under the implicit schedule attached to Indiana: a preview this fall, an updated preview in the new year, and a release next spring. (This schedule is aggressive.) It would be very helpful to write a strategy that incorporates the fact that phased deliveries are expected--with the right amount of progress, they might even build credibility that we are actually trying to make access to a larger set of software simpler. Obviously, I have a strategy in my head, but I'm happy to dump that out and share it, and insert a modified one. (It doesn't work exactly like that, I guess...) I don't mind pursuing in parallel that set of questions and possible answers and developing a requirements section as well, possibly out of the list you included. (Easy to offer because I agree, in part, with many--if not most--of them, and those ones have representation in pkg(5).) - Stephen
