On Wed, 2006-01-04 at 17:19 -0800, Mike Ditto wrote:
> Joerg Schilling wrote:
> > Dave Miner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>I'm not sure what an "OpenSolaris compliant" sticker would be designed 
> >>to achieve, though, or why SVR4 packages are necessarily a part of it.
> 
> Well I hope that the proliferation of OpenSolaris-based distros doesn't
> create a proliferation of binary/packaging compatibility standards
> for off-the-shelf and downloadable software.
> 
> > OK, let us call it "Solaris compliant". People like to know whether
> > things that work on Sun Solaris would also work on an OpenSolaris based 
> > distro.
> 
> So "Solaris compatible" is one ABI/packaging standard that a distro can offer.
> (Actually it should be a particular release, like "Solaris 10 compatible".)
> There may be room for other ABI/packaging standards, too (but as I said, not
> too many).  For example, I'd be interested in a "reduced historical
> compatibility" OpenSolaris ABI that is willing to forgo all compatibility
> with system administration interfaces and other expensive burdens and maybe
> even use new packaging formats, such that this new ABI could be supported by
> future releases of Sun Solaris as well as alternative OpenSolaris distros
> that might or might not choose to implement the "Solaris 10" ABI.

I don't know what package-level compatability you are talking about...
Today, *Solaris software distributes in next ways:

1) source tarball
2) binary tarball
3) autoextracting scripts .sh
4) SVR4 packages
5) custom installers

I think it will be unfortunate if SVR4 packaging will be a requirement
for OpenSolaris compatability... Neither distribution vendors nor
software vendors should not be forced by this. IMHO. If software vendor
decides to release .deb packages for Nexenta GNU/Solaris, why not?

On another hand, in Nexenta we have "alien" technology which could
potentially convert between SVR4 <=> Debian formats on the fly. The only
thing is dependencies, i.e. some software might require Nexenta, Belenix
or Solaris specific software to be pre-installed, which complicates the
picture a bit...

> But if we expect to buy or download pre-packaged software there needs to be
> some kind of "virtual sticker" for each ABI that lets us know whether the
> software and the OS work together.

Again, look at M$ Windows. It does not have any package management
built-in, and it is still OK.

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