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Stuart Herbert kirjoitti (sunnuntai, 21. maaliskuuta 2004 21:21): |
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> On Saturday 20 March 2004 12:06, John Nilsson wrote: |
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> > I never ment that Gentoo developers would do some non standard things to |
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> > the packages. If the standard is not good enough to convince upstream |
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> > developers to change, it is not good enough, period. |
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> |
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> It'll never happen. XML isn't something that everyone accepts is always a |
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> good thing. In many languages, handling XML content programmatically is a |
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> RightRoyalPain(tm). And we currently lack adequate XML-aware diff and grep |
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> tools - two things essential to making this work. |
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This is true. One option, which would make the solution considerably iffier, |
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but ease the transition from the current model quite a bit, would be to use a |
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configuration file generator for each package. I.e. the configuration tool |
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would read the possible options and documentation from the schema and then |
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call for the config file generator to write the file according to the users |
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choices. Thus the configuration file itself (and the main package) wouldn't |
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have to change at all. |
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Now obviously the file generator would have to be maintained upstream, |
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otherwise it'd be linuxconf all over again, except worse. However, this way |
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the upstream packages themselves wouldn't need any major overhauls, but just |
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a compliance layer (consisiting of the schema and the converter) between it's |
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native configuration and the common protocol. |
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This apporach could also solve the issues of handling XML in various |
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languages. And yes, I know it's a maintenance hell. |
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> So how would the config tool know how to generate the XML file? A schema |
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> is nowhere near enough. |
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If both the schema and the configuration file would adhere to a common |
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standard (which, AFAICT is what we're talking about), it shouldn't be a |
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problem. |
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> How many packages are there in the Gentoo tree? Over six thousand. Let's |
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> say you could convert each one in an average of one man day's effort. I |
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> think that's optimistic, but it keeps it simple. Now, a man year is around |
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> 200 days of effort, allowing for weekends, holidays, illness, and |
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> overheads. So that's 30 man years of effort to convert what we have today. |
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Except that the vast majority of those packages either don't even have |
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configuration files, or are niche packages, which on a large scale don't |
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really matter. |
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IMHO having support from just c. 50-100 major packages would be enough to |
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make the protocol a true standard and with 200-300 packages it would already |
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change the way all Linux systems are maintained and configured. Whether |
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packages like dailystrips or xmms would follow is largely moot. |
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> If you had RedHat's money, maybe it could be done. But Gentoo people are |
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> volunteers. On average, volunteers on activities outside normal work and |
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> family commitments manage a man month's worth of effort over 12 months of |
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> elapsed time. So you're really looking at 360 years to get it done by |
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> volunteers. |
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Frankly I don't think that selling this idea to Novell, IBM or RedHat would |
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be impossible. The amount of value that a common configuration standard |
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would give to Linux is huge. It would make it considerably easier to create |
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configuration tools and thus could drop the TCO of Linux systems quite a |
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bit. And TCO is what Linux in the corporate world is really all about. |
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-- |
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Jani-Matti Hätinen |
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"Oh I'm not drunk. I'm mentally ill" |
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