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On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Marius Mauch wrote: |
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> On 02/20/04 John Nilsson wrote: |
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> |
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>> Would it be wrong for Gentoo to settle for a standardized |
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>> configuration file format and implement it in the distro? |
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>> |
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>> I think the current situation is a mess and if we (through patches or |
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>> upstream changes) could rely on a single configuration format (xml |
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>> mabey) a lot of nice features could be engineered. |
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>> |
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>> 1. A standard parser library API for all apps. |
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>> 2. Same frontend usable for all configurations. |
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>> 3. A final solution to all config file upgrade problems. |
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>> |
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>> I know that this is a little outside the scope of Gentoo or Portage |
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>> development, but the whole point of using OSS is the ability to mess |
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>> with the source. I see no reason why Gentoo can not be a leader in |
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>> distributon innovations... |
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> |
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> a) no, as it's an impossible task |
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> b) no, as different formats are suited for different purposes |
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> c) no, as I don't think anyone has time for it |
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> d) I don't see how the format plays a role for updating config files |
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> |
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> as for b), surely some unification might be good, but there isn't one |
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> format that fits for all applications (unless you don't care about |
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> manual editing). |
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For the points 1 and 2, one could go the way of Apple, and standardize |
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on XML. However, this sort of buggers the question - while the API may |
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be the same for all MacOS X apps' configs, this doesn't mean there isn't |
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still a veritible gulf between config files. Also, their universal |
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configuration editor is only ever used by bit twiddlers, as it's more |
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arcane than most traditional Unix config files. |
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Being a leader is nice, unless you're leading in a direction no sane |
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person would want to go. We might be able to sanely get the three |
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features requested at some point in the future, but it would require, so |
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far as I am currently aware, an imaginitive leap from where we are now. |
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It would also require making significant custom patches to virtually |
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every package in the repository, which is not something that I think any |
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meta-distribution will seriously contemplate. |
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|
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Ed |
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|
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-- |
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