Mike Auty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted [EMAIL PROTECTED], excerpted below, on Sun, 01 Apr 2007 14:13:24 +0100:
> From what I've read of the PMS, it currently only describes the input > format it would accept (namely the format for ebuild files and their > contents). This question can be delayed until the PMS defines the > operation of the package manager, including but not limited to the > recording of installed package data. If the package managers do not > agree on which packages are installed or how to uninstall them, then > they are not yet interchangeable. > > I apologize if this point has already been raised elsewhere in the > thread. I try not to get involved in threads like this, but > accidentally read a reply and thought this might be a valuable response. Thanks. It is valuable (and hasn't been already raised to my observation). As I understand it, they wouldn't necessarily be dynamically interchangeable, that is, on a live system (at least not without running some sort of conversion utility, which may or may not exist and may or may not "lose" some information in the conversion, defaulting the missing values). Rather, one could choose one and run with it, and only change with some work and/or loss of data. Practically speaking, at minimum, it is assumed the world file would normally either remain the same format or be convertible (automatically or by hand), and the USE flags would be convertible, so if install data were lost in the switch, one could at worst rebuild empty-tree world (in whatever PM lingo) to get the database in the new format if necessary. Thus, it's not something one would wish to switch back and forth willy nilly, but switching would be possible, with a bit of work. Of course, that assumes a package manager that even has the concept of the world file, I'd guess a /relatively/ safe assumption (and some form of USE flag handling is required by the spec). For those that didn't, well, a rather more painstaking individual package rebuild may be necessary to do the conversion. However, one might suppose those would be corner cases, and if someone wanted to go to the trouble, well... The point being, however, that all this quarreling about "official" package managers doesn't /really/ have to happen. Arguing Ciaran's viewpoint for a moment, if portage really is /that/ bad and "future challenged", if official restrictions /do/ end up eliminating all other competition for official manager, well, it's entirely possible there'll be an official manager, and then there'll be the one (or more) everyone actually uses, again making arguing over an "official" PM "much ado about nothing". That's one extreme. At the other, the alternatives just never go mainstream, regardless of whether they are "officially blessed". Again, much ado about nothing. In the middle, multiple managers prove functional and are chosen by a reasonable segment of Gentoo users, regardless of "official blessing" or not, and again, it matters little what the official status is. I just don't see why so many are spending so much time arguing over it, when regardless, people are going to make their choices, and "official" status won't matter so much when people do so, because the package spec and what works is going to be the defining factor, not some "official" blessing, except indirectly as that affects further package spec updates. If that makes any sense and isn't entirely circular... it does (and isn't) to me, anyway. Certainly more so than what to me is pretty much bickering over nothing. =8^) -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
