On Dec 6, 2007 12:51 PM, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
>
> >> The point is that as an end user, I want a sensible way to deal with
> >> multiple repositories that _don't_ collaborate. After all, if everyone
> >> agreed on policies we wouldn't need any third party repositories at all.
> >
> > Ok the problem field is that you have N different repositories, using
> > M different guidelines, using O different compile flags, and P
> > different filesystem layouts.
>
> The constraint is simply that you do not replace any file/library with
> one that is incompatible.
And how do you know it isnt compatible? Keeping ABI's the same is
extremely hard work and basically would mean that a repository rarely
puts up new stuff but only backports items from upstream. Thats a lot
of work for something they don't get paid for. And even if the ABI is
the same, it doesnt mean that you have different actions occur because
one had a compiler with XYZ flag in it and the other had XZY.
> The Sun people like to claim that you can run
> anything that ever ran on Solaris on subsequent versions so the problem
> space isn't as impossible as you make it seem - it is more a matter of
> respecting interfaces and backwards compatibility.
And that was a load of bull from Solaris. You could run most Sun
things from Solaris 2.x to 2.x1 but the list of things that didn't run
as expected was always pretty long. And to do that they had to
basically strip down the OS to extremely limited functionality. That
was why it was such a 'radical' change when they started shipping GNU
tools in the OS because it had been requested for years but the amount
of churn was too high for them to want to deal with.
> But my point is that
> I don't want to be forced to use a repository that always follows this
> constraint. Sometimes compatibility is what you want, sometimes you
> want something different, and you need to be able to manage both.
>
But are you willing to pay for that? Because its not an easy problem
to solve that people can throw more computers at and get it working.
It usually requires a lot of meat-ware time with people working out
meat-ware politics and issues.
> > The best you could possibly do is not
> > have packages at all but keep each package in a dmg file and let the
> > ld fight it out over who gets executed today... but that would seem to
> > be a different OS.
>
> Yes, that would make Linux as difficult to maintain as a Mac.
>
Maintainability is usually on the opposite side of choices.
--
Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"
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