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From: Sean Fagan <sef@ixsystems.com>
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Subject: Delta packages
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Date: Tue, 13 May 2014 13:21:04 -0700
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We have a strong desire to make delta packages -- that is, given version =
A and version B of a package, to be able to download a package that has =
only the changes between A and B.

I've written a little program to create this (it currently only has the =
files that have changed, not binary diffs, although that would I suppose =
be possible; just harder).

I can, I'm sure, come up with a way to manually extract and update the =
packages databases; however, I'd prefer to do a lot of that in the =
package code.  (Among other things, being able to specify what the delta =
is from would be good; I couldn't see a way to add random key/value =
pairs to the manifest using the pkg* routines, and while I can add it to =
the +MANIFEST file I create, that doesn't actually do a whole lot.)

First question:  is anyone working on something like this already?

Second question:  Any objections to it in principal?

Merci beaucoup,

Sean.