[csw-maintainers] the future of pkg-get...

[Dagobert Michelsen]

Hi Ben,

Am 05.09.2011 um 19:13 schrieb Ben Walton:
> We noticed the following tweet in the irc ceeswi feed today and it
> started a discussion about what to do with pkg-get:
> 
> --snip--
> opencsw at twitter: Solaris joys. I'd forgotten than OpenCSW can screw
> itself in the middle of an upgrade by removing wget/ssl.  Guess how I
> was reminded :(
> --snip--
> 
> As this is a problem that would affect pkg-get, but not pkgutil due to
> the operations ordering, we started discussing options.  Some of the
> options are:
> 
> 
> 1. Provide a new pkg_get package that bails with a 'Please install
>   pkgutil' message unless the arguments are '-i pkgutil'
> 2. Provide a new pkg_get package that bails in every case with a
>   'Please install pkgutil' message.

And that it is deprecated.

> 3. Have pkgutil provide pkg_get_stub/CSWpkgget thus obsoleting pkg_get
>   in favour of pkgutil.
> 4. Leave it as is.
> 
> My preference would be either 1 or 2 as I think that people hitting
> issues like those in the tweet do more harm than good to OpenCSW's
> reputation.  Both of these options could be implemented with a wrapper
> around pkg-get.real to allow a determined site to continue using
> pkg-get if they want.
> 
> The third option, while superficially attractive, would leave people
> without anything responding to pkg-get and shouldn't be considered
> seriously in my opinion.  (I guess CSWpkgutil could provide a
> replacement for pkg-get...implementing option 1 or 2, but I still
> don't think this is the best path.)

pkg_get_stub could provide a message of the type "2".

> The fourth option is status quo and harmful to users in the long run,
> in my opinion.
> 
> What do you folks think?  Are there other better options?

I would go with a combination of 2 and 3.


Best regards

  -- Dago


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