Hello list:
I'm posting the various thoughts that we've had over the past year or
so with respect to a change in packaging. Some of these are points
that have come up in discussions.
We need a new package format because:
- There are several serious issues (as per Moinak) that were pointed
out about SVR4 in the ARC case for IPS.
- There are widely known and accepted package formats from other
distros and communities (RPM, Deb, etc) which we could leverage.
- Formats that we could consider are RPM and Deb.
RPM
RPM seems the most interesting format at the moment because:
- popular and widely known package format
- lots of tools (yum, smart, etc) which are RPM aware
- active maintenance, development and feature additions.
Deb
- We may explore this too
- Nexenta have done good work here
- Debian Community's opposition in the past is a matter of concern.
- Need clarity on their position.
- Need to make time and interact with the Debian community
IPS
We do not want to go with IPS because:
- No point in reinventing the wheel
Other formats and package managers
- ebuilds, pacman
-- Sriram
