Hello,
I have an interest in automation and configuration management and became aware of Pure Blends on another list thanks the Jonas' input.
If I understand correctly, in Pure Blend ideal, configuration is controlled as a function of the software packages via debconf. This then provides a consistent interface packaging a variety of target distributions of Debian with much of the heavy lifting done at image creation time. This system is then used to provide a consistent way of applying user configuration items to the individual packages once the system is deployed. This has many benefits: the package maintainer has control over the changes so can best manage how they integrate, there is a standard way of configuring software, it allows for a module approach to software management as the person dealing with a package doesn't need to know about the internal configuration format used by the software.
So, some questions:
Is the above a fair assessment of the current state?
How do you see this goal being achieved? Where is the now on the road to this goal?
What needs to be done?
How much buy in is there from the broader Debian community?
How would complex configurations be handles? (e.g. BIND configuration and zone files) ?
How can duplication of data be avoided?
Thanks for your time,
Matt