Laca: > On Mon, 2008-12-08 at 08:54 -0600, Brian Cameron wrote: >>> With regard to SUNWgnome-base-libs, it would make sense to split it into >>> individual packages per community tarball to follow the IPS packaging >>> conventions. >> Part of the reason why we initially put multiple upstream modules into >> packages like this was because the package names are typically listed >> as "Uncommitted". Packaging like this gives us some freedom to add or >> remove modules without affecting the package naming so much. > > I know, I was involved in coming up with these package names. > Keeping the package names stable helped us keep upgrades simple. > Another reason was that SVr4 packaging performs very poorly for > a large number of packages.
Yes, I know you were very much involved. >> I am guessing these sorts of ARC concerns are just not such a big deal >> now, or moving forward. Is this the case? > > It wasn't really an ARC concern. It was our decision and it made > sense at the time. Hopefully IPS will be better at dealing with > packaging changes / upgrades (although currently I don't think it is). I guess my memory just isn't so clear on why we originally decided to lump desktop modules together in what I will call meta-packages, like putting all the GNOME base libraries in SUNWgnome-base-libs. If the reasons were, as you say, just to avoid SVr4 packaging performance issues, then perhaps moving away from that approach makes good sense, as you say. However, I find it a bit ugly that we now seem to have a mismash of how desktop packages are delivered today. Older stuff is still delivered via these meta-packages, while newer stuff is in separate packages. While perhaps not a huge problem, it would be nicer if things were more consistent. I get the uneasy feeling we are moving towards a one-module-per-package system just because other distros do it this way, and not for any real specific good reason. But perhaps I am being uneasy for no good reason, or perhaps I missed out on previous discussions about this. It seems it would be good if we had a better sense of the value of doing packaging either way, and made a decision to stick with one approach or the other. If our long-term plan is to move away from using meta-packages and instead deliver every module in a separate package, that would seem better organized than what we have today. I'd just like to make sure that we aren't "throwing out the baby with the bath water" and switching to a system that might be more problematic to manage in the future by doing this. One advantage of using meta-packages is that it allows us to ensure that related packages are distributed together, which I would imagine helps to avoid related modules getting out of sync with each other. I am not sure this is a real issue that needs to be addressed, but its probably good to discuss if others have any opinions. Brian _______________________________________________ pkg-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/pkg-discuss
