2007/7/9, Alan Coopersmith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Doug Scott wrote:
> Where is the compatibility problem exactly. We do have certain build
> processes such as pkgbuild that map out the dependencies. These are
> easily modified to accept whatever it is changed to.
Only JDS uses pkgbuild - the rest of the consolidations have static
depends files you will need to manually edit when package names change,
and then there's all the unbundled software packages for
Solaris/OpenSolaris, software from places like blastwave and third-party
ISV's who list package dependencies in their packages.
we can have "aliases" inside the package system to satisfy backwards
compatibility, anyway, the NVDAgraphics is maybe not a good example, since I
think it's quite obvious what it is.
But there are other examples (like the short and cryptic names) that are
really annoying to package maintainers.
I'll give you an example, I'm working with the APOC source code now
(splitting adding autotools scripts to build it), I've been working with the
apoc package names for a month, and still, everytime I'm dealing with the
specfile and I see a reference to the package name, I can't remember which
one is what (SUNWapbas SUNWapmsc SUNWapmcg SUNWapcj SUNWapdc SUNWapdc-root
SUNWapcli SUNWapm SUNWapmca SUNWapmso SUNWapms8 SUNWapg26).
There are hundred of cases like this in pkginfo, it is very common to find
packages with 4 or 5 characters as abbreviation of something, and even some
of them doesn't have any vowel. It is not only a end user problem, but a
package maintainership one. This is a community effort, we should expect
people to came into, and support packages, and as a reference distribution,
we should expect encourage packagers to go mainstream.
And also, we should keep backwards compatibility.
As an example on how can this be solved in the long-run, dpkg/apt has a
"provides" propierty that allows you to act as a package that is not
installed to satisfy dependencies. There are also transitional packages,
which are empty packages that depends on several others (might be needed if
splitted). So, backwards compatible solutions are there.
I'm not suggesting to change them all _now_, but in the long term it would
make package developers life easier having a better naming convention.
--
-Alan Coopersmith- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering
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--
Un saludo,
Alberto Ruiz
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