From: tom <tom@...2i.com>
Date: 2002-11-09T06:09:10+09:00
Subject: Re: CPAN Style installer


Thanks for the info. I've been looking around the rpkg source tree 
while extracting the Tar source and it's a very nice package. 

I can see there is a lot of value in the work you have done, and feature 
for feature blows my comparitively modest effort away. Though perhaps not 
on the issues that are most important to me.

As I collect my thoughts on the issue, the things that are important to me 
are:
	* I want to see a package installation system usable to install 
most potential libraries. This is more important to me than it being the 
best packaging system. RAA integration is a key part of this.
	* A packaging system stands the best chance if it can work with 
the kinds of packages currently available - this means using source style 
packages
	* This doesn't preclude the use of more advanced packaging in 
addition, this particularly applies to the problem of Windows binaries, 
which will need binary packaging anyway.
	* The packaging system should not make use of a database anywhere 
on the system, though it should be possible to identify what packages are 
installed - this can be done by using version info in the packages.

Interestingly, I suspect that features to accomodate those goals could be 
added to rpkg without detracting from any of rpkg's value. The features 
being:
	* Handle source packages
	* Use RAA as database
	* Use versioning information in source files, not a db

I'd be happy to discuss doing the work to rpkg instead of raa-install if
these were features you would be happy to have added to rpkg.

So am I crazy or what?

-Tom


k