On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 07:51:57 +0200
Michal Novotny <clime(a)redhat.com> wrote:
I guess I am missing something but I don't see how modularity
adds
flexibility. rpm, yum repos, ansible, dnf seem to be quite flexible
even now and having that + something else on top seems to be less
flexible. I am just speaking my mind here.
I'm not involved in modularity, and I'm speaking as an observer. But
it seems that it would be a lot more effective to put the libraries in
containers, and keep applications in rpms.
That is, say there is a python container, and it contains the various
formats of python, 2.6, 2.7, 3.5, 3.6, etc. Then any application that
needs python just specifies the python it needs, and the OS links it
with the proper library from the container when it runs.
Or, gtk, with all its variations in a container, and again, applications
get the version they need to run transparently.
This would eliminate all the redundant library duplication that
containers as they are now envisioned would entail. There would still
be redundancy, but it would be the minimal set for the applications that
are installed. And it would still allow the upstream of applications to
specify specific libraries without worrying about
variations in distributions.
This doesn't address security concerns if an application upstream
specifies a library that is known to be insecure or unmaintained, and
it is in a container. But that's just a policy decision of a
distribution as to whether they allow a library container to contain
insecure versions in order to permit applications to install.
Just some thoughts.