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In-Reply-To: <199708251836.MAA20814@rocky.mt.sri.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 23:24:50 -0700 (PDT)
Organization: Atlas Telecom
From: Simon Shapiro <Shimon@i-Connect.Net>
To: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com>
Subject: Re: Checking the integrity of system files
Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, A Joseph Koshy <koshy@india.hp.com>,
        "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>,
        Alexander Indenbaum <baum@actcom.co.il>,
        Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, Warner Losh <imp@rover.village.org>
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Hi Nate Williams;  On 25-Aug-97 you wrote: 
> > In message <199708240303.MAA00881@word.smith.net.au> Mike Smith writes:
> > : Can you be more specific than "RPM-like"?  Yes in that there will be 
> > : management tools, no in that they are unlikely to be the RPM tools.
> > 
> > Is there something funamentally wrong with the pkg format that is
> > already in use for the packages?
>  
>  Yeah, it requires 'unpacking' the sources in a temp directory, and then
>  moving them to their actual locations.  This means you must have 2X+
>  room to install a package.  .2-8X room for the gzipped package, 1X room
>  for the unpacked sources, and 1X room for the installed sources.
>  
>  This is why moving to a standard format like ZIP would be nice since it
>  has a 'package listing' built in (plus encryption, passwords, and other
>  nice features which could be used by commercial software).
>  Unfortunately, no-one has the time/interest to build a 'zip' library.

Choose the Linux Debian format.  Just joking!

One neat trick there is actually keeping the package as an ar(chive) of
gzipped files.  Sounds crazy, but consider:

*  Almost no space for the framework.
*  Files can be extracted individually, and rapidly (well, faster than
   tar/cpio)
* Everyone has one already.
* TOC is trivial.
* You can even take components out and put new ones in.

The next step in this thinking is to use .so instead of .a files :-)
But this is my sick sense of humor and I should really cut it out.

Simon