[Zope3-dev] Re: Moving more stuff to zope.products

[Tres Seaver]

Philipp von Weitershausen wrote:

> - Packages in zope.app have loads of dependencies on each other. 
> Especially the tests insanely depend on other packages. Moving optional 
> stuff out and flattening zope.app will automatically reduce some of 
> that. We can also take this as an opportunity to de-spaghetti-fy 
> dependencies...

We are definitely at a now-or-never point about this.  As a conceptual 
exercise, imaging packaging Zope as follows:

   1) Zope is distributed as a single, monolithic chunk (all that
      "dependency spaghetti" will allow).

   2) Each product and subsection of zope.app is packaged as a separate,
      loosely coupled package (RPMs, .deb's, whatever) *with explicitly-
      identified dependencies on the others.*

The first scenario makes the "what is in the core?" question crucial; 
the second allows different "super-packages" to be created to suit 
different needs (e.g., my "filesystem-developer only" distro would not
preclude a separate "ttw-devel-and-the-kitchen-sink" distro).  Given 
that the two best-known package systems (.deb / .rpm) can both do 
dependency resolution (rpm + apt or yum, anyway), the major advantage of 
the monolithic strategy ("batteries included") is reduced.

Packaging for Windows and platforms without such dependency resolution 
remains thornier;  nonetheless, I think we should attempt the "fine 
grained" mdel.  From this POV, it should be a goal of PackageGeddon both 
to identify *and to reduce* such interpackage dependencies.

Tres.
-- 
===============================================================
Tres Seaver                                tseaver at zope.com
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