On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 2:55 AM, Lurie <y...@gmx.co.uk> wrote: >> Yes.. writing an entire package manager from the >> ground up is *less* work than maintaining the patches. > > This is called "moving forward", IPS is based on new novel ideas, a secure > package manager without any arbitrary post/pre-install scripts, which is > fast, doesn't hog the system upon installation and is very easy to use, and > upgrades the whole system at once, versus just the packages, which ensures > you won't have any conflicts.
So modern Linux package managers do not have any of these qualities ? Strange!! And how difficult it is to implement no-scripting limitation in an existing packaging system ... > > If everyone would do as you suggest and just "copy everything" because it's > easier, there would be no innovations in OpenSolaris at all. And IPS *is* an > innovation in my book. I've been using IPS since its inception, for how long > have you been using it ? Not really, you missed the point. There are places where there is scope for innovation and people know they have ideas that go a lot beyond the current stuff that is deserves a clean slate implementation. Like ZFS. The ideas expressed in ZFS are revolutionary to say the least and could not have been done by re-using existing stuff. However there should exist a balance between redo everything and re-use otherwise one would start re-writing every piece in the name of innovation. OpenSource is also about a balance between the two. I am forced to work with IPS day in and day out at work. I have submitted bugs with fixes and working on add-in modules. I am very familiar with the codebase and inner workings of the complex beast, so I know what I am talking about! The user side experience of IPS is no doubt very good but is no different from a good Linux package manager like Smart/Yum (with the exception of ZFS features). From a developer point of view these qualities could have been got by far less effort and far less code/complexity. Regards, Moinak. -- ================================ http://www.belenix.org/ http://moinakg.wordpress.com/ _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
