[advocacy-discuss] Software 'wish list'!

[Shawn Walker]

Rich Reynolds wrote:
> sure the could go to the headache of building a IPS repository for their 
> stuff, but that is simply another cost the must incur just to support a 
> disto delivered by Sun...   not all the OpenSolaris distros will embrace 
> the IPS packaging model and now the Third Party Vendor has to incur the 
> cost of multiple repositories and the staffing to build the correct 
> packaging for each of them...

The "headache" of building an IPS repository is not nearly as bad you 
make it sound.  For example, it is very easy to start a depot server and 
create one:

pfexec svcadm enable pkg/server

There I just created an empty, network-accessible repository at 
http://localhost:80 ;)

Publishing packages to it is of relative levels of difficulty depending 
on your needs, whether you have an existing SVR4 package already (which 
can be imported and tweaked), and so on.

As for OpenSolaris distributions that don't embrace IPS; I think they 
will be at a severe disadvantage, but I'm biased :)  I'm also of the 
belief that third-party vendors would rather use a supported packaging 
system published by Sun.

Remember, OpenSolaris 2009.06 is a very early preview of Solaris Next.

Cheers,
-- 
Shawn Walker