VFolders isn't a standard yet

[Rapha�l Quinet]

On Mon, 08 Jul 2002 22:43:06 -0500, "Andreas Pour" <pour at mieterra.com> wrote:
> George wrote:
> > On Sun, Jul 07, 2002 at 10:39:42PM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote:
> > > My understanding of what the proposal is trying to address is the
> > > following points:
> > >
> > >   (1) menus should be editable by sysadmins, by modifying a file or
> > > files, not by rearranging directory structure.
> > 
> > No, that's not the point.  The point of the vfolders is to be able to CHANGE
> > the structure without effecting installers, installed programs and programs
> > that will be installed in the future.
> 
> What you seem to be describing, to me, is a design flaw in rpm, and
> perhaps other package mangers.  A package manager that does not permit
> moving files when installed is really the core problem, no?  And to
> solve that problem, we create a monster directory with potentially
> hundreds of files.

I disagree.  This is a problem of local policies that some sysadmins
have (especially on large and heterogenous systems) and that can
probably not be solved adequately by any package manager. [*]

I administer several networks of Solaris and Linux machines (various
distros).  Some of them share their applications via NFS, some of them
have their local copy of the applications.  Some applications are
compiled from sources, some others are installed from RPM, Debian
packages or Solaris packages.  I would like the desktop of all
machines to offer a similar menu structure to all users.  Currently,
the various distros or source packages do not agree on the menu
structure (and I would make some changes to it anyway, even if they
did agree).  If I change the .desktop files after the installation,
the menus are messed up every time I upgrade a package.  I do not
think that any package manager would respect my local policies
regarding the menu structure and still allow the installation, upgrade
and removal of packages to work correctly.

The VFolders spec may be a solution to that problem.  Maybe not the
best solution, but at least I hope that it would allow me to upgrade
some packages without having to do a lot of manual work.

-Raphaël

[*] It could be solved by a package manager, but that would probably
    require some kind of "remapping" file or database that would not
    be simpler than what is proposed in the VFolders spec.  Besides,
    this would only work if all package managers (Solaris, RPM,
    Debian, ...) as well as the autoconfiscated build scripts would
    agree on the same syntax for the mapping rules, otherwise it
    would be necessary to maintain the local policies in many
    different places.