[Zope3-dev] More thoughts on packaging

[Jim Fulton]

There seems to be a possible consensus emerging that we should
use a packaging system.  I suggest that we should use an existing
system (or systems) such as RPM or the debian system and
provide the ability to generate course-grained distributions
from these systems for those systems (e.g. windows) that either
don't have package systems or don't have package systems that
we support.

Suppose, for example, that we support RPMs and Debian packages.
We should still generate Zope source releases that don't require
any OS package support.  These source releases might be mostly a
collection of source packages (or derivatives) with some glue
code to get them built and installed. In particular, a source
release might look little or nothing like a CVS checkout.
Similarly, a binary release might be largely a collection of binary
packages (or derivatives).

Packaging should be largely independent of the repository structure.
In particular, whether a package is or isn't included in a distribution
should not have much of an effect on it's place in the repository.
Whether a package is included in this or that distribution, or even the
degree to which a package is "optional" is likely to change over time.
It would be insane, IMO, to move a package whenever it's status changes.

I think a Python package's status and it's relationship to
other packages, especially its dependencies, should be captured in
meta data, not in it's Python package location.

Jim

-- 
Jim Fulton           mailto:jim at zope.com       Python Powered!
CTO                  (540) 361-1714            http://www.python.org
Zope Corporation     http://www.zope.com       http://www.zope.org