Autopackage for Ubuntu!

[Mike Hearn]

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 01:49:07 +0000, Martin Alderson wrote:
> Any plans to use autopackage (autopackage.org) which would solve most,
> if not all, Linux install problems (distro-neutral packages, automatic
> dependancy resolution with no central dependancy database, iirc,
> bootiful GUI for both GTK and QT, etc etc).

Yo,

I'm the autopackage maintainer. Just in case things get out of hand, let's
clear up a few points:

- autopackage will not solve all Linux software install problems. Sorry.
  Popular misconception, even though we try hard to avoid people getting
  that impression on the website. It is only one component of a much 
  larger set of work needed for that.

- Right now we don't have a 1.0 release, I think it'd make sense to wait
  until we do before trying to get the base release into any distributions.

- autopackage isn't just for proprietary software, in fact right now it's
  being used primarily by GTK+ based open source projects like Gaim and
  Inkscape.

- Yes, it does make sense to have the runtime in distributions by
  default, because otherwise when you first use a .package file you
  have to jump through hoops to switch on the +x bit, wait while the
  runtime is downloaded and so on. Having it all in the base distro
  avoids that (until we release a new version that packages start relying
  on that is ...)

Still, autopackage is very young and there are not many packages out there
yet so it's kind of arguable how much benefit Ubuntu users would gain from
it being included.

> I'll just cover some brief points why apt-get ain't no good for 'big
> marketshare use':
> 1) There will be too much software for a central repo to handle and
> test it. You'd need a petabyte just to store games from the last few
> years, on Windows at least.
> 2) Software makers could have their own repos, but that has more
> problems - the fact you have loads of conflicting repos in your
> sources.list and you are distro-specific.

There is a more comprehensive discussion of the pros/cons of centralised
packaging here:

   http://autopackage.org/NOTES
 
We don't see it as a replacement for apt, rather it's complementary to it.
Apt works great for managing the core of a distribution. It works rather
less well when you try and scale it up to "everything you might ever
want". It's been attempted many times before, with Debian, Gentoo and
Fedora most notably, and it's inevitably ended up in a quagmire.

In my most humble opinion, the Ubuntu project would be better off
concentrating resources and manpower on building a great operating system
rather than a big collection of packages.

thanks -mike