PulkoMandy wrote:
The package manager is really important because it will reflect the policy of the Os about as much as the sourcecode licence. Do we allow only free software in a main repository ? Do we check everything ourselves ? Do we allow anyone to submit apps ? Who does the support if there is a conflict between two apps ? The linux way don't map well to closed-source software, and the mac way don't map well to ever-changing, compatibility breaking libs from the linux world. We have to find our own way between them and find something that pleases everyone. Not so easy to achieve.
One solution to this problem is already partly described on the wiki page. I will try to finalize the description tonight.
Instead of a traditional packages repository, we should run instead a database that maintains information about packages and their dependency details. For this to work, software releases should be uniquely identifiable (name, version, revision). When someone releases a package, it has to be registered on the central database. The community can update the database with dependency issues. This approach is much less restricted than the Linux approach, and yet still allows to use shared libraries as intended.
Regards, Brecht
