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From: Eivind Eklund <perhaps@yes.no>
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In-reply-to: Sean Eric Fagan's message of Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:54:53 -0700
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Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) 
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[Chuck Robey]
>> OK.  You mean this (I guess, from above) that this includes the ports
>> packages.  One shortcoming of ports is that the packages aren't aware of
>> the sensitivities involved in upgrading from one version to a newer
>> version of a package.  port A, when going from version A.1 to A.2, simply
>> writes a new package, A.2, right besides A.1.  A later pkg_delete of A.1
>> will wipe out A.2's functionality.

[Sean Eric Fagan]
> This is something I do at work -- making sure that it is possible to upgrade
> the OS without having to shut down.  (There's a reboot to get to the new
> kernel, of course.)

> This is *hard*.  Mainly because nobody bothers writing support for it ;).

[long list of requirements for packages deleted]

Doesn't RPM already deal with much of this?  An entire book (over 500
pages) is available on the design of RPM - and they've been kind
enough to also put it online at http://www.rpm.org (there is a link
from the front page).  It would be a pity to just ignore all the work
that has already been done; at least we should be able to snarf the
good parts of their design, if it isn't good enough to use directly.

Eivind.