Rethinking Ubuntu's Repositories

[Ryan Oram]

On Mon May 24 at 10:08:49 BST 2010, Conrad Knauer <atheoi at gmail.com> wrote:
>I like the repository system that Ubuntu uses, but I feel that there
>is a problem with it and I have a suggestion as to how to fix it.

>Splitting out the desktop apps would mean that old LTS releases (like
>Dapper, which is expired for the desktop but still supported for the
>server) would not need to keep ancient browser packages around (like
>Firefox 1.5)!
>
>There are some notable 'desktop' apps in Universe (e.g. VLC, Chromium
>(chromium-browser), Thunderbird and Wine spring to mind), which are
>under active development and could be treated similarly...  Perhaps
>"deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-desktop maverick universe" ?
>
>Sincerely,
>Conrad Knauer

I have implemented a very similar system to the one you're proposing
in my distribution infinityOS. Applications will be updated freely
while the core libraries will remain frozen for a year after each
release. Each Core OS release will serve as specification for building
packages.

I'd be more than happy to expand it into a general pilot project for Ubuntu.

>From https://launchpad.net/~infinityos-core :

"Notify the core team via the mailing list about your package update,
and a member of the core team will push it to either the "testing" or
"unstable" repository, depending on the libraries it depends on and
the stability of the code reflected in our testing. If it is pushed to
"testing" and no major problems appear after at least a week, it will
be pushed by Ryan to "stable" and all infinityOS users will be
notified of the update.

All packages must be uploaded to a Launchpad PPA before they will be
considered to be included in the infinityOS repositories.

Note: Keep in mind, this applies to applications like Firefox, Deluge
and MPlayer, *not* the kernel, core libraries and the desktop
environment. The core OS will be frozen each year, as there will be an
annual core OS release."

Thanks,
Ryan