On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 4:12 PM, Stephen Hahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>   Here's the part on package namespace handling.  (These drafts were
>   checked in as c0af9237a26a.)  I'd like to get feedback on this
>   document as well, before we start coming up with explicit categories,
>   etc.  It's probably worth mentioning that I could have written much
>   more, but then the discussion might be prematurely narrowed...
>
>   - Stephen

Both Peter Tribble and I have raised concerns about many of the
fundamentals of how the namespace works.  Without trying to speak for
Peter, I think the areas of concern are chiefly:

- It seems as though the authority seems to be a hint at a URL without
  actually providing the usefulness of a URL.
- There is such a lack of specificity in the format of various fields
  without guidance when to choose different values that there is too
  much room for confusion.  This confusion will lead to unnecessary
  fragmentation of the namespace with a negative impact on end users
  and ISV's trying to write software to support OpenSolaris and
  Solaris.
- While I am sure that people have thought about how this fits into
  distribution schemes, signing, stability of FMRI's for dependency
  reasons, etc., I can see little indication in the proposal that
  the road there will be a smooth one.

In an attempt to address these issues I have produced a modified
version of the proposal.  I know it is far from perfect and worry that
my idea of what an authority is supposed to be is different than what
the core team envisions it as.  However, the way that I have (likely)
redefined it seems to be a starting point for a clearer path forward.

http://cr.opensolaris.org/~mgerdts/pkg-names-and-groups/

After spending time on this effort and having a brief offline
discussion with Peter, I feel as though the namespace would be best
suited by having packages (that deliver content) in a flat structure
and using the group and/or feature namespace for categorization.

There are remaining concerns about how best to do dependencies,
particularly in examples like postfix vs. sendmail, assuming there is
no provides+requires capabilities.

-- 
Mike Gerdts
http://mgerdts.blogspot.com/
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