[advocacy-discuss] Software 'wish list'!

[Shawn Walker]

On Jun 20, 2009, at 8:47 AM, Laurent Blume wrote:
> Shawn Walker a écrit :
>> 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.
>
> I'm a bit late to that thread, but - what is an IPS package? I know  
> of IPS repositories, sure, but never seen anything .ips?

Which means nothing :)

The on-disk format should be in the 2010.02 release.

> Also, I've never seen any commercial vendors out there using that  
> kind of distribution model. In my experience, they make actual files  
> downloadable, or even more commonly, they send a media.

I don't think it is much of a stretch to place files into a repository  
in a native package format where they are easily updated.  The  
significant advantage for the ISVs are access control and  
significantly less bandwidth usage than a traditional distribution  
model.

> And a big part of my previous job was installing software on systems  
> with no network anyway, for security reason, so a network-only  
> system is a big no-no.
>

Each organisation has their own needs and desires, obviously software  
that is distributed online naturally pairs well with a network-centric  
distribution service.

> Now, considering that even SysV packaging isn't really so commonly  
> used 20 years after it was introduced, I seriously doubt that  
> anybody will jump on the new, unproven, evolving format.


Oh ye of little faith ;)

Cheers,
-- 
Shawn Walker