> o We (or someone) needs to be able to easily and quickly create a new
>  packaged version of the component for OpenSolaris any time the upstream
>  community releases new versions (so that this second class of user is
>  satisfied), and

I could understand a desire to do this but that's not the intent of
this project.  The intent is to integrate a stable (to some extent)
version of PHP5 into the project knowing full well that there will
likely be upgrades in the future.  Some of those upgrades may involve
turning on some features in the "existing" PHP5 (for example, adding
MySQL bindings) or incorporating bug fixes to the current version that
don't require a new version.  And some may involve proposing and
getting approval to integrated a newer version of PHP5.

In a future version of Solaris, there might be the multiple trains of
change available that users can choose from - slow (primarily bug
fixes, new features come into view only at well-defined points), medium
(certain classes of features such as platform support come into view)
and fast (constant stream of change, some of it incompatible for
certain commitment levels).

By providing a directory hierarchy like Perl, I believe it can be
leveraged in the future *if* we decide to do that future release.  It
can also be used if we take a more measured approach (what's being
proposed here) and be very selective in which versions of PHP that we
wish to integrate/support.

> o We need to allow our users/admins to select which version(s) that they
>  wish to install and/or use (so the more conservative ones are not left
>  in the dust).

That might be a nice thing to offer but seems outside this case.  We
don't currently do that for any of our other components except perhaps
for their choice of shell or their window system.

The proposed directory structure though does allow different versions
to exist - which ones are integrated depend on which ones the community
proposes, which ones the ARC approves :-) and which ones actually have
the resources behind them to support.  Distro are then free to choose
which of these versions they wish to support.

dsc

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