-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thu 12 Jun 2014 05:52:28 PM UTC, Keith Wesolowski via smartos-discuss wrote: > On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 01:27:40PM +1200, Nicholas Lee via smartos-discuss > wrote: > >> However, even some important applications seem to have issues. For example >> like recent struggle with samba (at least one issue is nss_winbind >> libraries being unable to be installed in /usr/lib) and cpan. While these > > Software that assumes /usr is writable is inherently broken. That NSS > modules don't work anywhere else is one of a whole passel of horrid bugs > in NSS. The reality is that NSS needs to be rewritten. > >> and other application install issues may be unrelated to the GZ:/usr+/lib >> readonly filesystem, it does make it harder to debug for people used to the >> /standard/ way of doing it. > > This IS the /standard/ way of doing it. If you don't like /this/ > /standard/, you're free to use a different OS which will follow a > different "standard". > >> Most Linux distributions get around this by having package maintainers and >> package tool sets. > > That's not a solution. The problem of third-party package version > X+delta being incompatible with version X is not solved by having a > person dedicated to "maintaining" the package of that third-party > software. It's solved by using third-party software written by people > with a clue who actually understand software architecture and give a > shit about their customers' experiences with their products. Otherwise > all you get is a few sentences buried in 200 pages of "release notes" > telling you that oh by the way when you upgrade, your world will be > broken. > >> Any major change in a package during an upgrade is handled by 1) >> documentation via console messages, changelogs and readmes, 2) assumption >> of reasonable defaults, or 3) scripted upgrades - like with mysql. > > pkgsrc has all of this. It's not a solution any better than it is > anywhere else. Of course, again, this has absolutely nothing to do with > sparse zones and everything to do with third-party software in the > pkgsrc/pkgin repos. In fact, when it comes to build-to-build backward > compatibility for user applications, the platform is (subjectively) > about 16 orders of magnitude better than any other piece of software out > there. Barring bugs, we simply do not break working user software. The > platform is arguably the one "package" you can safely upgrade > arbitrarily without worry. > >> I'm not sure how many people Joyent has working on packaging, but probably >> less than "one per package" like debian/ubuntu/etc. So that type of system >> is likely to not possible unless joyent want to build that community. > > What do you think this mailing list is for? Or the web site, wiki, and > IRC channel filled with helpful people? Or the introduction of > visibility into our internal bug system at http://smartos.org/bugview/? > There are over 11,000 packages in our pkgsrc repo today; are you > seriously suggesting we hire 11,000 people to "maintain" them? If not, > then I'm forced to point out that "just build that community!" is > neither helpful nor actionable. We invite and encourage people to work > on packages, either for SmartOS specifically or for the greater good > (pkgsrc is used on many operating systems, and as a result we do in fact > leverage an *existing* community of package maintainers from many > different places). In fact, there's quite a bit of this, which you can > see from the GH history and issues (https://github.com/joyent/pkgsrc). > If you'd like to contribute some love to a piece of software that > matters to you, welcome! Telling a company that's providing all of this > to you for nothing that we're somehow obligated to find a way to compel > 11,000+ individuals to "maintain" third-party packages seems dubious at > best. > >> I'm not entirely sure if there is a cure for this, but as Ian says it's a >> very good reason for clear separation between a vm and the hypervisor. > > We'll have to agree to disagree on this technical issue. > >> On another note, one of the reasons why I stopped using *bsd was sourced >> based packaging distribution, which forced everyone to be a package >> maintainer. > > pkgin(1m) is not "sourced based" (sic). This criticism is meritless and > based on a misunderstanding of how our system is intended to be used. > There is an exact analogue between "apt-get install foo" on your > favourite GNU system and "pkgin install foo" in a SmartOS zone. If you > like the apt model, you should like the pkgin model. If you don't like > the apt model, then you should not like the pkgin model either.
+∞ Keith, I totally agree. SmartOS has strong opinions about what the global zone is for and how it relates to zones. It is those opinions that allow focus on desirable properties like security, performance, and seamless upgrade of the platform without infinite resources. Being everything to everyone isn't a design goal of SmartOS. Being an clean, compact, efficient, and secure hypervisor platform for cloud computing is. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJTmf7sAAoJEP0rIXJNjNSAEREH/2LwinSxQsypZDzP1KUvIRAR nQvPkypk0w2+dfdrtQxF/MfNbfDTBz7T6jgR6ePY0GpT8XqMTNPoYvS+TtRDNB/h 7iZbjGYQqMekULGCI6ZVbzpthpmeL4Ynk1UK53woT76zkB4ASIwHe9Q320jQg9NQ GjO3be68TmY1xLykf+zL4ew3GKbO7wxCzROfel63MickKsUmeYqUFOQjC8GSFjUh 33TIHtBV4ggnFH6TbNr+Rp1xsmkN5t4mS3ZafX2ChGEYxo92ywYQ0LPFFWBqrBfz euSm3SV6x8oZ0Kdda6A0CkaUkCz93KM3JaHgI3etndYOFn32skSOEb5oFR+qCzM= =cL+T -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------- smartos-discuss Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/184463/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/184463/25769125-55cfbc00 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=25769125&id_secret=25769125-7688e9fb Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
