Dennis Clarke wrote:

> (snip...)
>
>These are the sort of things that we need to address.  I am working on
>a new Subversion repository for all the software at Blastwave right
>now.  If we also implement a build system then we can move towards a
>source set that excludes SUNW dependencies that are currently not open
>and gradually work towards a better way to build a complete OS which
>will include all these other software packages.  A grand leap I know,
>and certainly not about to happen overnight.  Any step taken today
>towards an open build system would be a step in the right direction.
>
I'd be disappointed if there were a significant amount of further
separation from SUNW packages.  I have no ability to influence it, but
iff the community settles on a package framework, I'd rather see a set
of OSOLblah packages or something like that projects like Blastwave
could depend upon being in any (most?) Open Solaris based distributions.

Why? 

On a recent services engagement with a customer, one of the admins was
vi challenged.  He was used to Linux where pico was found on many
systems.  I helped him get pkg-get on the Solaris 10 system and
proceeded to pkg-get "pine", which included pico.  However, the set of
dependencies was SIGNIFICANT.  I don't recall exactly what was on there
that I didn't expect, but it was stuff like MySQL, OpenLDAP, etc.  All
stuff that pine to my (admittedly shallow-- I used it back in '95-'97)
knowledge doesn't depend upon in all installations.

Coming up with a set of CSW* that will almost exactly map to SUNW* would
likely exacerbate this problem.

<OPINION> I think whatever packaging decisions are made in the OSOL
community should be more focused on the attributes that it should have,
rather than looking at the current or existing packaging systems.  For
instance, it would sure be nice if a CSWblah package could depend upon
SUNWfoo xor/or CSWfoo.   It might also be nice if there could be "loose"
dependencies.  For instance, installing pine you may want an LDAP
server, but you might be using one on another system and you might want
to choose from OpenLDAP and Sun Directory (both package based).

Making it easy for packagers too would be a boon, as that will make it
easy for end users.

And don't forget patches-- I've never had luck with the 'patch is a
package' routine that is more popular with other unixes.  It seems to
break far more than it patches.</OPINION>

Okay, with that out of the way, I'm going back to silently consuming
this thread.  :)

- Matt

p.s.: don't take the above as anything other than a constructive
criticism of Blastwave-- I love blastwave and even contribute monetarily
to the effort!

-- 
Matt Ingenthron - Technical Specialist, Web Services 
Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Client Solutions
http://blogs.sun.com/mingenthron/
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]             Phone: 310-242-6439


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