[advocacy-discuss] Software 'wish list'!

[Laurent Blume]

Shawn Walker a écrit :
> Note an nfs mount is just a filesystem, so that implies that anything 
> that can provide files works.

Ok, I had thought about that, but... (see below)

> I think the word repository 'evokes' some sort of image that implies an 
> entire collection of software, when that really isn't true.

... I did think it implied that, thus it wouldn't easily fit on a media, 
or just take hours to move files.

> The version of pkgrecv in the ips source gate right now has the ability 
> to extract and republish specific packages from one repository to 
> another or create a new one on the fly.
> 
> So for example, if you wanted just gcc and its dependencies in a new 
> repository on a filesystem:
> 
> pkgrecv -s http://pkg.opensolaris.org/dev -d file:///path/to/repo -r 
> SUNWgcc

And that *is* nice :-)

> I realise we don't have a roadmap that lays out what all the plans are, 
> but off-line support has been a goal from the beginning.  The issue has 
> been that resources available to implement all the functionality needed 
> is finite, so the most important functionality was implemented first.

Ok, I fully understand that now. I really didn't at the time, because it 
really wasn't advertised. Creating repositories seemed to be the only 
answer.

> Delaying an on-disk format has been a significant advantage for us since 
> it forced and allowed a refinement of the network-centric portions of 
> the design.  Remember that pkg(5) was only just started near the end of 
> 2007, so design and implementation have been occurring rapidly.
> 
> Because of the delay, the on-disk format when it is implemented will be 
> much better than it would have been had we attempted one at the 
> beginning because other parts of the system have changed.

That sounds great! :-)
Roadmap would be nice indeed. I understand it wasn't possible at the 
beginning, not many resources for that. But now we're getting to a point 
where Sun is extending support duration for OS.c, and talking about 
Solaris Next. Having a roadmap would allow some planning forward.

Thanks a lot for the clarification,

Laurent