Peter Schuller wrote:
>> I'd be happy to keep discussing this further, as we still don't have a
>> decent way to manage multiple installations of the same package in
>> pkgsrc, and package views is really the only proposal put forth to
>> address this in a general way.
> 
> Your post was mostly centered around implementation issues rather than design, 
> but it still prompted me to think of some things I had previously been 
> considering when trying to figure out what I ideally wanted out of a 
> packaging system. So here goes my thoughts, relevant or not...
> 
> Ideally, I would like a package system to:
> 
> (1) Allow for source based install for maximum flexibility and configurabilty.
> 
> (2) Have full support for binary packages in a way that makes mixing of binary 
> and source installs seamless.
> 
> (3) Allow for multiple versions of the same software to be installed at the 
> same time without affecting each other.

These three points are precisely what is addressed in my last post with 
the new proposed implementation of package views.  History and 
experience have shown us the problems associated with any attempted 
solution to cover these issues, and I laid those out in my presentation 
at pkgsrcCon referenced in my earlier email and reiterated in that same 
email.  At this point, I'm trying to start a discussion on how to 
overcome these problems.

> (4) Allow for fully automatic upgrading, even of packages with "state" (e.g. 
> PostgreSQL), subject to sysadmin configuration.
> 
> (5) Allow for atomic upgrading.

These two points will never be handled by any packaging system in 
general because they require too much package-specific knowledge.  I 
feel this is better left untouched by the packaging system and left 
entirely to the user.

I see my proposed implementation of package views as the base building 
block of being able to build and install multiple versions of a package. 
  Once you have that, everything else is easy.

	Cheers,

	-- Johnny Lam <jlam@pkgsrc.org>