Open Stack

On 2020-04-07 19:48:41 +0200 (+0200), Radosław Piliszek wrote:
> Jeremy Stanley <fungi at yuggoth.org> wrote:
[...]
> > What you're in effect recommending is that we stop
> > supporting installation within traditional GNU/Linux distributions,
> > since only package management solutions like Docker or Nix are going
> > to allow us to punt on coinstallability of our software.
> 
> I think you are taking this a bit too far. System-wide
> site-packages are an inherently flawed mechanism. Inability to
> have two different versions of the same library/program is due to
> this, not packaging. Distros already ship different versions of
> lower-level libraries, with differing ABI. Sometimes they separate
> the things in loadable modules with proper dynamic linking chains.

Yes, they do when it's absolutely necessary, but they also struggle
to keep that to a minimum and, e.g., only carry one version of
libssl at a time outside of transition periods. Every different
version of some piece of software a distro carries means that many
times they have to work out how to backport things like critical
security fixes.

> In Python similar can be achieved with venvs (and I know you know
> that). They exist for a purpose and this is the one.

I don't know of any traditional GNU/Linux distribution which
packages virtualenvs of software or considers that acceptable within
their main archives. Relying on virtualenv is effectively the same
as the Docker/Nix solutions I mentioned above. "Use a virtualenv" is
still essentially an argument for giving up on the viability of
distribution packages.

> Also, those same distros ship other Python projects, we can never
> ensure this level coinstallability with them even if they could
> enhance the overall service experience.
[...]

We can't, but we do our best to enable them through not pinning the
versions we test with in master any more than we have to. It's quite
often distro package maintainers ask us on the ML whether we can
drop some version cap on a dependency because it's in conflict with
something else in their distribution and they don't want to have to
carry multiple versions of it.

> Separate thing is that not all OpenStack software is packaged in
> the main distros. So in their case this is just wishful thinking:
> package me, I'm ready for the traditional packaging world where we
> drop everything in one big namespace*. :-)
[...]

Most OpenStack services, libraries and clients are packaged in
Debian, Ubuntu, and RHEL (though via RDO in that case?). There are
probably plenty more examples I'm just not aware of.
-- 
Jeremy Stanley
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