The logical extension of the 'installer packages' concept

[Jules Bean <jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk>]

[ObDevel: I'm try to develop a *technical* solution to a problem :-)]

We had a long flame-warish discussion about what to do with 47MB
packages.

To summarize:

For packages with a very large size/usefullness ratio, and typically
also short or non-existant build sequences, packaging up and putting on
our mirrors doesn't seem a very reasonable distribution method.

However, most people, even when installing 'data-only' packages (like
the coastline data, or like propaganda desktop backgrounds) would like
to have them packaged, so that the package manager takes control of
them, and they can be removed and upgraded

In fact, since trade-offs work out differently in different situations,
sometimes it might make sense to include a package in its 'full' form in
some mirrors (especially private or semi-private mirrors) - and some
CDs, but not all CDs.


So where does this get us?

For some packages, we need two different 'incarnations' of the package. 
Say, 'bgs-vol-1_1.0-1.deb' and 'bgs-vol-1-inst_1.0-1.deb'.  And
bgs-vol-1-inst, when installed, goes and, somehow, fetches the actual
data, and registers it with the dpkg database, so that bgs-vol-1 is in
fact now installed.

Now, in fact, bgs-vol-1-inst doesn't actually need to be a package,
since it doesn't need to persist. The situation immediately after
installing bgs-vol-1-inst should be exactly the same as the situation
immediately after installing bgs-vol-1, only the method of acquisition
should differ.  However, I think it would be breaking a well-established
invariant of packages if two packages of the same name and version could
differ in any way.

What I'm saying is that we could usefully have a standardised approach
to building installer packages, which generalises so that some data can
exist either as a full package on a mirror, or as an installer package,
more-or-less transparently to the user - but not to the mirror
maintainer!

Has anybody any thoughts on this?

Jules


-- 
/----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------\
|  Jelibean aka  | jules@jellybean.co.uk         |  6 Evelyn Rd        |
|  Jules aka     |                               |  Richmond, Surrey   |
|  Julian Bean   | jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk        |  TW9 2TF *UK*       |
+----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------+
|  War doesn't demonstrate who's right... just who's left.             |
|  When privacy is outlawed... only the outlaws have privacy.          |
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