[desktop-discuss] [pkg-discuss] Modify pkgbuild to make IPS images

[Lukas Rovensky]

Danek Duvall wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 24, 2007 at 01:28:25PM +0200, Lukas Rovensky wrote:
> 
>> One more question from the maintenance point of view.  The pkg(1) makes 
>> possible to freeze a package at a specified version to stop update flows.  
>> Currently this is decided by the user to use this constraint. Will it be 
>> possible to set this constraint in the package itself, that is after 
>> installing a newer version of the package it will be frozen automatically?
> 
> We have the idea of incorporations -- a kind of dependency that will freeze
> the depended-upon packages.  This way, you can install the "everything"
> "cluster" (for instance), and all the packages beneath it will then be
> upgraded in lock-step when you upgrade that single package.
> 
This is quite interesting idea.

> But that sounds a bit different from what you're proposing, and I'm not
> sure precisely what that is.  Are you suggesting that there's a sense of
> "the last" version of a package, after which it's installed, it can never
> be upgraded again?
>
You are right, I asked about something different and maybe I was just 
thinking too much the 'patch way'.  The scenario I had in mind is like 
the following -- a customer has a problem, a fix is implemented and 
needs to be verified.  In such situation it is now possible to create a 
restricted patch, which the customer can install but no additional patch 
can be installed on top of it.  Once the fix is verified then a regular 
patch can be created (the restricted patch is uninstalled and the 
regular patch can be applied).

So, the idea with pkg was similar -- creator of a new package version 
with implementation of the fix can say "no more new versions" on top of 
this package to preclude updates until the problem is solved.  Then, of 
course, an "unfreeze" mechanism would be needed as well.

As I think of it more it seems to me that such functionality may not be 
needed because we are talking about packages and not patches.

Lukas