Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Grant Goodyear <g2boojum@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] GLEP 49 - take 2
Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 17:30:41
Message-Id: 20060522172314.GB7577@dst.grantgoodyear.org
In Reply to: [gentoo-dev] GLEP 49 - take 2 by Paul de Vrieze
1 Paul de Vrieze wrote: [Mon May 22 2006, 06:29:19AM CDT]
2 > I have put a new revision of the alternative package manager requirements
3 > GLEP on line. The html version can be found at:
4 > http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0049.html
5
6 It seems to me that the main concerns addressed in that GLEP are (a)
7 that an alternative package manager should not lead to ebuilds that are
8 incompatible with the official package manager, and (b) that no package
9 manager should be the official package manager unless it can provide the
10 services provided by the official package manager (with "generating
11 release media" being on obvious example).
12
13 Perhaps something like the following would suffice:
14
15
16
17 GLEP: xx
18 Title: Supporting alternative package managers
19 Version: $Revision: 1.3 $
20 Last-Modified: $Date: 2005/11/13 17:16:50 $
21 Author: Grant Goodyear <g2boojum@g.o>
22 Status: Draft
23 Type: Standards Track
24 Content-Type: text/x-rst
25 Created: 22-May-2006
26
27 Abstract
28 ========
29
30 To support alternatives to the official package manager (portage, at the
31 time of this writing), some sane ground rules need to be set.
32 Specifically, no alternative ebuild-based package manager may be added
33 to the tree unless it successfully works with all ebuilds supported by
34 the official package manager. Moreover, no ebuilds may be added to the
35 tree unless they are supported (without change) by the official package
36 manager.
37
38
39 Specification
40 =============
41
42 * No alternative ebuild-based package manager may be added
43 to the tree unless it successfully works with all ebuilds supported by
44 the official package manager. If an alternative package manager is
45 runtime incompatible with the official package manager, then it
46 must be masked and provide appropriate warnings.
47 * No ebuilds may be added to the tree unless they are supported
48 (without change) by the official package manager.
49
50 Rationale
51 =========
52
53 The first rule sets a reasonable bar for adding an alternative package
54 manager to the tree. Note that if an ebuild currently in the tree
55 doesn't work with the official package manager, it isn't expected to
56 work with an alternative package manager either. The second rule
57 ensures that an alternative package manager cannot become a de-facto
58 requirement by supporting packages that the official package manager
59 cannot handle.
60
61 In order to keep this proposal as simple and focused as possible, it has
62 nothing to say about the process by which an alternative package manager
63 might one day become the official package manager. It is assumed that
64 sanity will reign, and no package manager will become official without
65 being able to build installation media, providing a transition path from
66 or to the existing official package manager, etcetera.
67
68 Backwards Compatibility
69 =======================
70
71 Pretty much the whole point, and it's explicit here.
72
73
74 Copyright
75 =========
76
77 This document has been placed in the public domain.
78
79 --
80 Grant Goodyear
81 Gentoo Developer
82 g2boojum@g.o
83 http://www.gentoo.org/~g2boojum
84 GPG Fingerprint: D706 9802 1663 DEF5 81B0 9573 A6DC 7152 E0F6 5B76

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-dev] GLEP 49 - take 2 Thilo Bangert <bangert@g.o>