[Catalog-sig] RFC: PEP 243: Module Repository Upload Mechanism

Martin v. Loewis martin@loewis.home.cs.tu-berlin.de
Sat, 24 Mar 2001 13:54:04 +0100


> > Most excellent.  I don't think we want it to include kernel information
> > though...
> 
> I'm not sure if you can get away from it completely.
> 
> Three words for you:
> Large file support

Maybe I'm missing something, but ... I don't think the packaging
system should deal with "minor" details of the operating
system. Instead, the package should, at run-time, determine whether
the feature is present or not. Otherwise, we end up with packages that
require, say, /proc support (*), and fail to install if /proc was not
mounted, or is missing from the kernel configuration. IMO, the right
behaviour in this case is to produce an exception at run-time (whether
from a deliberate test, or by just using the missing feature).

Regards,
Martin

(*) Or the Fiber API, for you Windows users :-)