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Denis Washington | 21 Jun 2008 10:32
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LSB Package API

Hi,

Some time ago, it was discussed on an LSB face-to-face meeting that an
API should be developed that allows ISVs to install sotware packages
which integrate into the package manager - the "Berlin Packaging API".
While the idea seemed to be well received, there didn't seem much
progress since then, except for a wiki page with a rundimentary proposal
[1]. Considering that third-party software installation is an undeniably
important weak spot of the Linux infrastructure, I found this was a
shame.

To reignite the the initiative, I decided to design and develop a
prototype implementation of the Berlin API, most creatively named the
"LSB Package API". It is designed as a simple D-Bus interface
accompanied with an XML-based package description format. A detailed
description and the source code can be found on this page:

 http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/LSB_Package_API

The implementation currently supports integration into RPM and dpkg; due
to its modular nature, support for more package managers could be added
later on.

I hope this implementation will act as a starting point for resurrecting
the Berlin API process. Let us overcome the "Third-party software
installation on Linux sucks" problem and strive to a brave new world of
easily distributable Linux software! ;)

Best regards,
Denis Washington
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Denis Washington | 4 Jul 2008 17:52
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Burgdorf Packaging API (was: LSB Package API)

Hi,

Some news about the proposal:

* As some were concerned about the name "LSB Package API" sounding too
official for a completely unapproved proposal, I renamed it. The
proposed interface is now named "Burgdorf Packaging API". (Burgdorf,
near Hannover, Germany, is my home town, and I thought this name would
fit well "Berlin Packaging API" - especially because both Burgdorf and
Berln are German towns. ;) Subsequently, the proposal page moved too
[1].

* In a related note, I uploaded the code to a Git repository at
Gitorious [2]. This should  make it easy to always get the latest
version of the code. Additionally, if you like to implement any
additions or changes to the implemented proposal, you can easily publish
clones of the main repository on the Gitorious project page. I hope this
will help us to experiment with the implementation and find good
solutions for the remaining gaps and issues.

So, to everyone who is interested: Let's start hacking! ;)

Regards,
Denis

[1] http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Burgdorf_Packaging_API
[2] http://gitorious.org/projects/burgdorf/

On Sat, 2008-06-21 at 10:32 +0200, Denis Washington wrote:
> Hi,
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Jeff Licquia | 23 Jun 2008 16:56

Re: [packaging] LSB Package API

Denis Washington wrote:
> To reignite the the initiative, I decided to design and develop a
> prototype implementation of the Berlin API, most creatively named the
> "LSB Package API". It is designed as a simple D-Bus interface
> accompanied with an XML-based package description format. A detailed
> description and the source code can be found on this page:
> 
>  http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/LSB_Package_API
> 
> The implementation currently supports integration into RPM and dpkg; due
> to its modular nature, support for more package managers could be added
> later on.
> 
> I hope this implementation will act as a starting point for resurrecting
> the Berlin API process. Let us overcome the "Third-party software
> installation on Linux sucks" problem and strive to a brave new world of
> easily distributable Linux software! ;)

Thanks for the effort!

Some implementation of the Berlin API is on the task list for LSB 4.  We 
have a few straw-men up on the LF Wiki, and now it appears we have one 
more. :-)  I'll take a look as soon as I can.

FWIW, there's some debate as to whether a honest-to-goodness API or a 
command-line tool would be best.  The advantage of starting with an API 
is that a tool is then easy to derive.
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Dan Kegel | 21 Jun 2008 15:59

Re: [packaging] LSB Package API

On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 1:32 AM, Denis Washington <dwashington <at> gmx.net> wrote:
> Some time ago, it was discussed on an LSB face-to-face meeting that an
> API should be developed that allows ISVs to install sotware packages
> which integrate into the package manager - the "Berlin Packaging API".
> While the idea seemed to be well received, there didn't seem much
> progress since then

I dislike that route intensely.  Why, I'm not sure.  Perhaps
because it encourages ISVs to manage package updates themselves,
perhaps because it smacks of the complexity of Microsoft's MSI.

I'm more interested in the single-click install idea Suse's
working on, since it's much less of an end run around
normal Linux packaging practices.  And I have a summer intern
to throw at the problem, so perhaps I'll make some headway on
it.

Can we move followups to packaging <at> lists.linux-foundation.org rather
than cc'ing all those lists?
- Dan

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Denis Washington | 21 Jun 2008 16:18
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Re: [packaging] LSB Package API

On Sat, 2008-06-21 at 06:59 -0700, Dan Kegel wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 1:32 AM, Denis Washington <dwashington@...> wrote:
> > Some time ago, it was discussed on an LSB face-to-face meeting that an
> > API should be developed that allows ISVs to install sotware packages
> > which integrate into the package manager - the "Berlin Packaging API".
> > While the idea seemed to be well received, there didn't seem much
> > progress since then
> 
> I dislike that route intensely.  Why, I'm not sure.  Perhaps
> because it encourages ISVs to manage package updates themselves,
> perhaps because it smacks of the complexity of Microsoft's MSI.
> 
> I'm more interested in the single-click install idea Suse's
> working on, since it's much less of an end run around
> normal Linux packaging practices.  And I have a summer intern
> to throw at the problem, so perhaps I'll make some headway on
> it.

The problem I currently see with single-click install is that it still
relies on a single package format (.rpm), so there would have to be
several packages of the same application again. Another particular
problem I see is security: RPM runs as root, so post-install routines
will do so too. That's why I tried to do an architecture that works
without root privileges (in many cases at least). But maybe there are
are already plans how to address this? I must admit I'm not all that
well-informed about SuSE's one-click install.

> Can we move followups to
packaging@... rather
> than cc'ing all those lists?
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Richard Hughes | 22 Jun 2008 14:45
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Re: [packaging] LSB Package API

On Sat, 2008-06-21 at 16:18 +0200, Denis Washington wrote:
> The problem I currently see with single-click install is that it still
> relies on a single package format (.rpm), so there would have to be
> several packages of the same application again. Another particular
> problem I see is security: RPM runs as root, so post-install routines
> will do so too. That's why I tried to do an architecture that works
> without root privileges (in many cases at least). But maybe there are
> are already plans how to address this? I must admit I'm not all that
> well-informed about SuSE's one-click install.

We've discussed this in detail on the PackageKit mailing list.

> > Can we move followups to packaging <at> lists.linux-foundation.org rather
> > than cc'ing all those lists?
> 
> OK. I wanted to get as many parties as possible on board, but now
> let's say: whoever likes to follow this discussion is encouraged to to
> join packaging <at> lists.linux-foundation.org [1]. Follow-ups should only
> be sent there.

Sure, you probably want to see the FAQ and mailing lists archives for
PackageKit too. There's a real reason PackageKit doesn't support OCI,
and another reason it supports catalog instead.

Richard.

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