[csw-maintainers] Dependencies on SUNW packages (was: newpkgs libslp1, openslp_devel)

[Philip Brown]

Sorry, this thread got buried in my mailbox.
Dredging out a "draft" reply I was previously working on...

On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 3:41 PM, Ben Walton <bwalton at opencsw.org> wrote:
>
>...[I noted your later reply, this is from original...]
>  I think that ultimately, depending on the SUNW
> package is the nicest solution, but it's been shown that this is not a
> stable choice for the long term as names can and have changed.

Some things, yes. I think in this *specific* case, there is a very low
risk of this though.

> Depending on our own libslp package gives all of these benefits.  The
> downside is that there are now two libslp's on the system.  Someone
> please correct me if I'm wrong here, but the slp provided by SUNWslpu
> is the Sun implementation of this protocol, correct?  The package
> Maciej has provided is of OpenSLP.  This means that it's only
> providing slp functionality, not the same library.  (There very well
> might still be a naming if the parent paths are ignored...)

ah, interesting point. But same SONAME, right?(yup, confirmed same)
That is potentially a problem.


> Interestingly, this issue has been around for a _long_ time now:
> http://osdir.com/ml/solaris.blastwave.user/2004-09/msg00010.html

interesting indeed. What is of additional interest, is that the user
did not reply with, "hey why dont you guys just provide slp
yourselves?"
It's rather sad that we've never declared the slp dependency wen we've
needed it this long though :(

> In my opinion, making the admin dig up a package file from a
> potentially inconvenient location (and only after they've found a
> non-working cups) is worse than simply delivering the functionality
> ourselves.


And I have a different opinion on it. So what makes one opinion better
or worse than another?
Neither is particularly based on "this is technically better", but
really, personal preference.

>3. Some of the toolchain needs modification to handle this nicely.

Why? We already do it. I havent heard big complaints about how we need
to modify the toolchain on what we already do: we already have SUNW
depends.

Reguarding Maciej's http://buildfarm.opencsw.org/~maciej/slp-discuss/
yes, that is a very nicely laid out page.. preselected with all the
reasons that favor CSWopenslp, and none that go against it. Bias in
"voting" presentation again, one might say.

Two of the non-favourable ones being:
1. Same SONAME brings up potential for bad conflicts
2. Some users will be very against this needless duplication.

"interestingly", the chart obliquely mentions we are "Shipping
functionality already available in one of Solaris packages", but does
not indicate in any way that this can be considered a BAD thing for an
openslp package.

The existing column format doesnt mesh well with that row.