Updating RPMs using binary deltas (demo)

[Leonard den Ottolander]

Hello Warren,

> For those folks that want to eventually have optional RPM diffs for 
> upgrades, please do not continue the discussion here.

This is the Fedora devel list, right? Maybe more on topic on the RPM
list, but still a development issue, so IMHO rather on topic in this
forum.

I haven't fe seen people talking about kernel issues being referred to
kernel.org, because their discussions would be more on topic there. If
you are not interested in the issue don't read the threads.

> Instead if you 
> feel so strongly that it is technically good and without drawbacks, then 
> implement everything needed and provide a test repository and tools at 
> your project site.  Only after you feel your project page, tools, and 
> repository are PERFECT, then announce here for testing and comments.

Some discussion before implementation can help tackle some issues before
hand. I thought xdeltas would be very inefficient, but these scriptlets
Mike posted here look very promising.

> I would suggest that you to research the problem that was discussed by 
> Debian and Red Hat for at least the past 5 years.  Many smart people 
> have looked at this problem.  Try not to repeat the same mistakes and 
> learn from their prior discussions.

That is very wise advise. But for some reason some of the objections I
could formulate actually don't seem to be an issue. Now please tell us
where these scriptlets go wrong, what mistakes are being made that were
already identified before?

> Do not discuss it here because generally the elders are totally not 
> convinced that it is a good thing to do.

If the "elders" don't want to listen they don't listen. As long as no
huge flame wars break out I don't think these lists need this kind of
moderation/censorship.

> I personally think it is 
> possible and good to do as an OPTIONAL thing in cases where the diff is 
> below a certain % of the total package size, like 10% for example.

Optional for sure. I don't think anybody that likes the idea of binary
patches (in whatever form) wants these to be the default update path.
Don't change the default, just add an option for people that can use
such bandwidth savings (the other 99% of the population).

> However I feel that we have more important things to work on that are 
> higher priority, like Fedora Project's infrastructure, so I personally 
> wont put any effort into this for at least a year or more.

Nobody is asking you to put effort into this, but while I wait for the
above and other issues to be solved I hope you don't mind me investing
my time in things that I think are worth investigating.

Bye,
Leonard.

-- 
mount -t life -o ro /dev/dna /genetic/research