On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 03:05:42PM -0500, Tom Mueller wrote:
> Shawn Walker wrote:
>> Peter Dennis - Sustaining Engineer wrote:
>>> Are there plans to have a 'catalog only' access to a repository ?
>>>
>>> That is I want to configure my system such that it allows for
>>> the search of /pending or /contrib repositories but does install
>>> the software from them without some form of explicit actions
>>> to use software from those (that is I cannot accidently do a
>>> pkg install foobar but I can search to see if foobar exists
>>> without having to use a browser to point at the repositories).
>>
>> I think I see what you're after, but no, to my knowledge there have  
>> been no plans to implement this specific functionality.
>>
>> It sounds like you're asking for software sources to be searchable  
>> without them being available for packaging operations.
>>
>> To me, that seems useful but also possibly very confusing to users  
>> depending on how it it is presented and implemented.
>>
>> I should note that search now allows you to search repositories if you  
>> provide their URI (even if that URI doesn't belong to one of the  
>> repositories for the configured publishers within an image).
>>
>> As for possible implementation, it might be interesting to add an  
>> option to search to include "disabled" publishers.  A GUI could then  
>> choose to prompt a user to enable a given publisher if the user  
>> selected a package to install from them.
>>
>> Cheers,
>
> Another aspect of this is the ability to view the catalog content for a  
> restricted repository (support, extra) without having the ability to  
> install packages from that repository.  This is to allow people that  
> don't have a support contract to see what they are missing, and thereby  
> be encouraged to get one.
>
> The problem with this is that you don't want to require the user to get  
> a key/cert in order to have this level of access.
>
> Tom

It seems like advertising might actually be a more effective way to let
people know what they're missing.  How many people are actually going to
look in the support repository and then decide to buy a support
contract?

It seems more likely that customers will be looking for fixes to
software on SunSolve.   If the tools informed the customer that their
bug is fixed in a software update available in a pay-for-support repo,
that might encourage them to buy a contract.  Especially if we put links
on the relevant SunSolve pages that allow them to easily do so.

-j

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