[lsb-discuss] [packaging] LSB Package API

[Theodore Tso]

On Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 08:19:37AM -0400, Matthew Tippett wrote:
> Our end result is that we took the path of releasing a monolithic  
> installer, but included the mechanism to build and install packages *on  
> the user's machine*.  This seems to be the happy medium.  Users who  
> don't understand packaging can download and install with the ".bin"  
> mode, and experts can generate their packages and install those.

It's definitely the case that if you need to generate 3rd party kernel
modules which work on whatever kernel/kernel-headers the user has
installed, locally generated packages on the user's machine makes the
best amount of sense.  On my T60p laptop, which used the ATI chipset,
I used the fglrx modules and the packaging you and your team developed
worked very well.

Other ISV's may have other constraints/priorities which may cause them
to produce other solutions; for example Robert articilated his
requirement of non-root installation in the user's home directory.

One of the things that might be interesting is if ISV's are interested
in collaborating on packaging technologies for their respective
requirements/constraints, I could imagine different communities of
interest working that worked on different packaging (or
meta-packaging) technologies on an open source basis.  For example, if
AMD/ATI were interested in collaborating with other ISV's that need to
ship products that use externally generated kernel modules (in some
cases said modules might be available all in source form, such as in
he case of Rational Clearcase and VMWare; in others there might be
binary components, such as ATI and Powerpath), that would be great.

Or if the there are some companies that want to collaborate on
mechanisms for non-root, unprivileged package management in the user's
home directory, that's great too.  There's plenty of room for
experimentation.

Regards,

					- Ted