LWN: Comments on "Distributions in the Summer of Code"

Distributions in the Summer of Code

muwlgr — 2008-05-26T18:37:38+00:00

Better teach GRUB or LILO to boot the kernel from LVM partitions.

Distributions in the Summer of Code

dberkholz — 2008-05-02T16:09:24+00:00

I relied on using names I recognized by eye when scanning through the list on the Summer of
Code site. Unfortunately, both my eyes and my knowledge of distros are fallible -- sorry about
that. I probably also missed any other distros besides Pardus that don't show up in the top 50
at DistroWatch.

Of Pardus' five slots, the split looks like this:

-Package management: 2
-Configuration management: 1
-Installation: 1
-And the project to add 802.1x to NetworkManager

Another "distribution" worth mentioning is MacPorts, which has four projects all related to
package management. I didn't mention Haiku because all its projects were OS-related, so it
wasn't interesting for the purposes of this article.

Distributions in the Summer of Code

caglar — 2008-05-02T10:00:31+00:00

Seems like our editor have not done his homework right :(, how can you miss "Pardus Project"
[1] with five [1] slots...

[1] http://www.pardus.org.tr/eng/index.html
[2] http://code.google.com/soc/2008/pardus/about.html

Distributions in the Summer of Code

afalko — 2008-05-02T08:01:01+00:00

I think that package management systems are 
1) Not perfect (at least I haven't run across one that is perfect).
2) The most important part of a distribution.

Right now, GSoC package management system proposal seem to fit into one of the following
categories:
1) Infrastructure to improve how developers maintain packages.
2) Usability improvements.
3) Clean up or introduction of a feature.

There are exceptions, such as a proposal to convert packaging formats.

Distributions in the Summer of Code

dirtyepic — 2008-05-01T06:02:06+00:00

i was surprised at first to see the sheer number of package management projects people are
working on.  i guess it makes sense though;  package management is one of if not /the/ most
important elements of a distribution, and each distro has their own method of handling
packages which in turn have their own unique problems, needs, and goals.

it seems we still have a long way to go in this department.  luckily, it also seems we have
plenty of ideas on how we're going to get there.