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LSB:PM:Berlin Packaging API
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Contents |
Open Issues
A "straw man" proposal has been made on the Berlin Packaging API page, and has been shopped around to the lists. While some useful feedback has been gathered, it's not clear that further discussion on the lists is going to be very productive; it's probably time to move on, and not make further proposals again until after there is some code to show off.
Vision
"Berlin" is the name for the proposed packaging API which allows third-party installers to register their applications in some way with the package manager.
For better or for worse, feedback from ISVs has been that third-party installers will be with us for some time to come; the case for using packages has not been convincingly made yet, and in some cases, cross-platform installers mean that some ISVs will never do native packaging. As a next-best situation, it would be nice if there were a way to tell the package manager what the third-party installer has done, so that the package manager can help to avoid conflicts and be used as an uninstaller.
Note that "API" is used loosely here; while the API may take the form of a traditional C library, it could also be a command-line program, a set of interface changes to rpm/dpkg, and/or something else.
Milestones
| Milestone | Plan Date | Outlook | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Create an API specification. | 4/11/2008 | In progress. | |
| Implement the specification for the major package managers. | |||
| Get the new spec adopted by the major distributions. |
Resources
No resources have been dedicated to the project.
Hardware
No specific resources have been dedicated to the project.
Contacts
List of people who are working on the project and their roles.
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Jeff Licquia | Project Owner |
| Sam Hart | Straw man implementation |
Tasks
Tasks will map many-to-one to milestones. Tasks are specific actionable work items that need to be completed in order to reach a milestone
Active
| Task | Owner | Status | Outlook |
|---|---|---|---|
| Write specification | Jeff Licquia | In progress | |
| Create straw man implementation | Sam Hart | In progress | For current status, see here |
Completed
| Task | Owner | Status | Outlook |
|---|
Pending
Tasks that can't be scheduled yet because they are waiting on some other task or external entity
| Task | Owner | Status | Outlook | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Implement the RPM version of the specification. | ||||
| Implement the dpkg version of the specification. | ||||
| Get the RPM version of the specification adopted by RPM upstream. | ||||
| Get the dpkg version of the specification adopted by dpkg upstream. |
Comments
The initial straw man was proposed on the Berlin Packaging API page, which might still be a useful page to put technical details.
Jeff Licquia 12:30, 7 March 2008 (PST)
An initial straw man implementation (in Python) is online and can be found at its temporary home here.
Sam Hart Wed Mar 26 11:09:02 EDT