> Please, could you expand on your statement? Why would > it be a bad idea? > To me, it would solve most of the problems we have > today with OpenSolaris on having to create redundant > sub-installations of most of the operating system > dependencies, only to install a package like, for > example, "mplayer" from blastwave.
Actually, it wouldn't. The problem is that on GNU/Linux, where rpm "works", people just go ahead and DUMP their 3rd party/unbundled software into /usr. However, the LSB specification (chapter 16.) clearly states that 3rd party and unbundled applications are to be delivered in /opt, /etc/opt, and /var/opt. So if 3rd party and unbundled applications were actually compliant with the LSB specification, they would land in /opt, among other things, and you would have the exact same problem that Solaris has. Again: the only operating system that has this solved *cleanly* is sgi IRIX, because the inst(1M) software management subsystem works based on the principle of namespaces. And under this concept, a 3rd party packager may deliver his/her own software anywhere on the system (naturally, /opt!) and their packages would be automatically replaced as soon as the vendor issued a newer revision - as long as the 3rd party packager used the same namespace. This concept is critical and essential for solving the current shared object libraries and application duplication in Solaris in general, and not just OpenSolaris. This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
