[ogb-discuss] [arc-discuss] Defining OpenSolaris Consolidations

[James Carlson]

Brian Utterback writes:
> I think it is unwise to focus too much on the "does not duplicate"
> property. It seems to me that it would be perfectly reasonable to
> have conflicting consolidations that both deliver the same file,
> but that would have the restriction that either one but not both
> could be delivered into a single WOS.

That seems mostly logical, as the previous rules were based on the
idea that we're intentionally building just one "system."

I'd suggest, though, strongly discouraging the practice and avoiding
it until we're forced into it.  I suspect that it's far harder to
track the dependencies caused by such a thing than anyone realizes.
Delivering the same thing from multiple consolidations just for the
joy of it is very likely to lead to chaos -- and the sort of mutual
incompatibilities the ARC tries very hard to avoid.

Most WOS creators (distributors) aren't necessarily going to get a
completely free hand in creating distributions, because they still
need to pay attention to dependencies if they care to ship something
that's stable.  (Obviously, those who don't care if their bits are
usable at all are free to include anything in them, including
conflicts.)

-- 
James Carlson, Solaris Networking              <james.d.carlson at sun.com>
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