[Kolab-devel] Just a question

[Thomas Lotterer]

On Fri, Mar 19, 2004, Nathan Toone wrote:

> Why use openpkg???
> 
Among all the things listed on Facts and Features [1], FAQ [2] and
Security [3] at least the following apply to the typical Kolab
User/Installation:

- Open source software 
- High quality consistent installation 
- Built-in porting knowledge 
- Cross platform 
- Minimum OS dependencies 
- Self contained Packages 
- Minimal OS intrusion 
- Run-command facility 
- Support for entire package lifecycle 
- Dependencies for build and runtime 
- Clean and compact package specifications 

> Why not do a source distribution and list what dependencies there are?  
> 
SRPMs contain pristine vendor sources. This is a key design goal of OpenPKG.

> Include patches for the sources that need to be patched (apache, imap, etc).  
> 
SRPMs contain patches from vendors, 3rd parties, security engineering etc.

The spec file inside a SRPM is somehow exaclty what you wrote in the
instructions you wrote in you previous message - only readable by a
machine. By making heavy use of macros OpenPKG tries to keep package
specifications clean, compact and retain human readability. This is the
major difference to other RPM approaches which focus only on binaries.
Another key design goal of OpenPKG is that, again by using macros,
source packages build equally well across FreeBSD, Linux and Solaris.
Man-years of porting know-how are built into the specs.

You may not require OpenPKG - but it makes life much easier, predicable,
reproducable and secure across platforms.

Maybe you or someone else transforms your instructions into specs and
contribute them.

[1] http://www.openpkg.org/facts.html
[2] http://www.openpkg.org/faq.html
[3] http://www.openpkg.org/security.html

--
Thomas.Lotterer at cw.com, Cable & Wireless