> This isn't even an argument to put duplicates of everything into the > /usr/gnu/bin directory. The senario of downloading from sourceforge > and ending up with a newer copy of everything in /usr/gnu, leaving > the copies in /usr/bin untouched seems like the best possible result > to me. You've completely updated /usr/gnu and people who have > it in there paths and left the system versions in /usr/bin unchanged.
I thought about this last night as I was playing chauffeur for our kid's school functions (lots of waiting...) When I wrote that, I wasn't thinking about the user downloading the gnu utils from sourceforge and replacing them; rather, I was thinking about the 140,000 other projects out there that are mostly under our radar - the ones we will never add into OpenSolaris, but that users want to use. But, your comment struck a chord - I am in the midst of installing a new system with B56, and the Apache httpd/Tomcat that comes with it is slightly out of date and not configured with the modules I need. This means that I'm trying to do exactly what you said. This leads me to believe that we need a different mechanism for incorporating these OSS bits into [Open]Solaris. Instead of forking a copy, massaging it privately, stuffing it into a SUNW* package and shipping the binaries with a Solaris distro, we should investigate how to push the packaging and delivery out and up. The best of all worlds would be for me to be able to go to the apache download site, grab the apache httpd source, type in the configure/make mantra and end up with a newer version of the OpenSolaris Apache Httpd package, one that could be used as an upgrade for the one shipped with the Solaris SX distro I am using. Same for the GNU toolchain, etc... This implies that the OSS stuff should not be packaged in the traditional SUNW* packages (which imply Sun control), but rather OSOL* or even APACHE* ones. It also suggests that there should be a continuing Project on OpenSolaris.org for each and every OSS thing that we decide needs to become a part of OpenSolaris, and that these project's deliverables are the upstream creation and maintenance of this package glue. Of course, such an effort also needs to figure out its relationship with the OSS things that are not part of OpenSolaris, but are delivered as part of the Blastwave, SunFreeware, SFW and Companion CD efforts. -John
