Edgy Third Party Package Management

[Jerry Haltom]

I think one of the biggest things is people's expectations. I do not run
Linux (of course I do), I run Ubuntu. The OS on my computer is Ubuntu.
It happens to be based on Linux. Still, it is Ubuntu.

I don't really even know what's worth it in trying to solve the "package
management problem". I don't even see it as a problem. These perceived
incompatibilities are incompatibilities between different distros, which
have their own goals and motivations for existing. Users don't really
even care! They installed Ubuntu, they want to install software for
Ubuntu.

There is no way all distros will ever be 100% alike in all ways. If they
were, they'd cease to be distros. At that point somebody would fork and
do something different anyways. The OS I am targeting with my proposal
is Ubuntu. Ubuntu uses Apt. Hence, my proposal uses Apt. It is with Luck
that most other distros are also Apt capable, and that provides us with
an opportunity to allow ISVs to do some interesting things... such as a
single Click Here button which installs the appropriate software for
their user's distro.

I suspect though that Ubuntu right now is in a position to make this
work. We could support and push the specification. We could help ISVs
who want to support us. When we succeed other distros will follow.

On Sat, 2006-06-03 at 00:32 +0200, Florian Zeitz wrote:
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> Jerry Haltom wrote:
> > Of course. Nobody in their right mind would supply a version for all
> > 100. Nobody is proposing that.
> > 
> > I am proposing we provide a way for ISVs to publish packages for OUR
> > distribution: Ubuntu. That way can be as open as possible and leave as
> > much room for other distros to follow as possible... but the goal is
> > still to have people provide packages for Ubuntu. This is a way we can
> > take the initiative.
> > 
> Agreed, but if you want to take the initiative the system should really
> be very open, so that other distributions _can_ use it. The current
> proposition is very apt centric, so this won't be possible.
> GNU/Linux generally suffers from the lack of a common packaging system.
> There are various approaches (like autopackage) that are all disliked
> for one or the other reason (one reason I always hear, is that it is
> circumventing the distributions package management, which is said to be
> far superior (ironically people tend to think that there own package
> management is the superiorest)).
> 
> Third party apt is still worth implementing. It would even help
> developers/MOTUs who want to provide beta quality packages for testing
> to interested people, but saying it is as difficult to do Linux
> packaging as it is to do Windows packaging is plainly wrong IMHO.
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