Yes... it is interesting.
+ it seems well-thought out. It includes digital signatures
for packages
- if you're not part of the aforementioned "Integrated Computing
Environment" you're somewhat out of luck. The system seems
to depend on all machines using the same absolute paths for
locating software packages.
- You have to have root access to install a package.
I posted a note on one of the linux newsgroups about this, but
I guess I'll say it here:
I'd like to be able to install a package:
* on a per-user basis, in $HOME somewhere
* on a per-group basis, in some group-writable directory
* on a per-host basis, in /usr/local or some such
(root priv. required)
* on a per-site basis, in some nfs-exported directory
or some such
Further, I'd like to install a package on a per-user basis, test
it out, and then upgrade it to a per-group/host/site installation
without much hassle.
It's really a shame that a software distribution can't be just
unpacked anywhere in the filesystem and work properly. A unix
executable can't reliably find the directory where it lives
to find config files.
Mac applications can do it, but then there's the question of
per-session, per-invocation, per-user configuration and such.
Here's a real nightmare example: on a DOS box, a hard disk
was partitioned into C and D drives. lots of software lived
on each partition. Lots of windows program icons had hard-coded
D:\... paths. A second hard disk was installed. DOS, in its
infinite wisdom, henceforth refers to two partitions on the new
disk as D: and F:. The original disk is now C: and E:. The
software has magically migrated from D: to E:, so the
windows program icon files are out of sync, and they have to
be fixed manually -- the only reliable way to do it is to
reinstall all the apps.
What a mess!
Does anybody know how software installation works in the new
CDE/COSE systems?
Dan