Re: Package System specification

[Jochem Huhmann <joh@gmx.net>]

* Nicholas Petreley <nicholas@petreley.com> wrote:
> * Jochem Huhmann (joh@gmx.net) [000414 16:00]:
> > Yes. What is "RPM"? It is a tool, but a tool that only works as expected
> > if the dependencies work. SuSE and Redhat and whatnot are using RPM. So
> > can you just install rpms for SuSE on Redhat or vice versa? No, you
> > can't. 
> 
> Neither SuSE nor RedHat are LSB compliant.  Nobody is yet.  
> 
> If you standardize where things go (which is one of the things LSB does),
> then AFAIK, a single RPM packages should behave the same on both SuSE and
> RedHat when SuSE and RedHat become LSB compliant.  

That's right for plain throwing files into the system, but not for
dependencies. Nearly every distribution, even if it uses the same
package format (say RPM), has its dependencies named and structured
differently. LSB has to agree on common dependencies at least for parts
of the system. If it doesn't, a common package format is almost
worthless (and if it does, the physical package format is almost
irrelevant, since one can convert packages in a clean way then, maybe
with a wrapper). If a package can't reliably decide if all dependencies
are fulfilled, vendors will just throw in everything to make sure that
the software works and this will lead to the same problems as in
Windows.

The package system is not the problem (both Debian- and RPM-based
package-systems have nearly identical features), the dependencies are
the problem. This is again a problem of agreeing, not a plain technical
thing.


        Jochem

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