[Sugar-devel] Zero-calorie bundles?

[Aleksey Lim]

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 12:39:59AM -0400, Bernie Innocenti wrote:
> Dear Zero Install developers,
> 
> as you may know, Sugar is a learning environment consisting of
> educational activities packaged and distributed as "bundles", which are
> some kind of glorified zip files.
> 
> This design was chosen because we wanted to enable our learners to
> participate in the creation of new activities using our stack.
> Secondarily, our security model benefits from unprivileged installation.
> 
> Unfortunately, our activity bundle format is very limited: no
> dependencies, no multi-arch build system, no signature checking, weak
> versioning model, no concept of source bundles, and general immaturity
> of the toolset. On the other hand, most (but certainly not all) our
> activities happen to be simple, "Pure Python" applications with no need
> for the complexity of a full-blown packaging discipline. Most of us like
> this simplicity and wish to retain it. Nevertheless, now that Sugar runs
> on multiple architectures and OSes, these limitations are starting to
> chafe.
> 
> Zero Install appears to have identified reasonable compromises for many
> of these trade-offs. While I'm not yet claiming that z-i would be a
> better alternative for us to pick off the shelf, there's certainly a lot
> of experience within your community to learn from.
> 
> Also, I understand from previous discussions [1] that hosting for
> package repositories would be helpful to you. I think we could help out
> by sharing our bandwidth and disk space. Sounds like an interaction in
> which both sides have something useful to give :)
> 
> How about getting together on IRC to exchange ideas regarding packaging
> strategies? I'd propose next Saturday @ 1500UTC [2], of course
> negotiable.
> 
> [1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.file-systems.zero-install.devel/2753
> [2] http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=10&day=17&year=2009&hour=11&min=0&sec=0&p1=43

I'm personally +1024 for 0install integration(and even in 0.88 cycle),
in my mind it could be good way to fix blobs and non-SP dependencies issue, so
* our pure python bundles is preferable way to deploy activities
  (0install syntax could be optional)
* there is tendency to integrate sugar to regular desktops, so we don't
  have to package all non-sugar software, just a way to resolve unique
  dependencies and provide binaries for several architectures(which is
  related to 1st point)

-- 
Aleksey