Philip Brown wrote: > Dave Miner wrote: >> >> I wouldn't view it as quite such a benign situation. There's a reason >> why most distributions settle on one packaging system. > > What you left out, is that while each [linux] distribution has "one > packaging system", there are almost as many packaging systems, as major > distributions. > > This suggests that there is a benefit in fostering diversity of packaging > systems, across different distributions. It would seem that each linux > distro thinks so; otherwise, they'd all be using the same one! >
My perception, which may well be inaccurate, is that they tend to be coalescing, however, so the trend is in the direction of consolidation around a couple. Other than Debian and RPM, I don't see that any of the others are attracting a substantial following. > Sun is supposed to be "encouraging" multiple distributions. > If sun is truely in the business of "encouraging" non-sun distributions, > seems like sun should thereby not take actions that, either directly or > indirectly, force opensolaris distributions to pick a particular one. > > Sun's Indiana distribution of opensolaris will use IPS? ok.... but is it > right to pressure any and all other distributions to also use IPS? > > If Brian wants to use a different one for what he wants to do with > opensolaris... seems like Sun should not get in the way of that. > I'd be surprised if any of us at Sun believes we can force someone who wants to build a distro to include a particular technology. I'm aware that there are some in the community who have advocated for compatibility requirements among distributions based on specific technologies in order to use certain marks, though. I don't think the issue here is whether Brian or anyone wants to use a different packaging system for a distro they want to build, as Nexenta's amply proven you can do that with the current state of affairs, and I don't think any of us is particularly bothered by it. The allusions to making Conary the "standard" or "successor to SVR4" are where the contention is coming from, as far as I'm concerned. Dave
