[Base] Summary/Minutes from today's Base WG meeting (2013-11-08)

[Jaroslav Reznik]

----- Original Message -----
> On Fri, 2013-11-08 at 10:51 -0600, Dennis Gilmore wrote:
> 
> >   * LINK: http://fpaste.org/52688/38392758/   (pknirsch, 16:19:54)
> >   * Base definition: installer, compose tools, minimal install (for some
> >     definition there), and functionality the majority products want to
> >     use  (pknirsch, 16:21:30)
> > 
> 
> Hey, I read your minutes, and discussed some of my thoughts on this with
> my workstation wg peers. Basically, I think that defining a 'base' as a
> particular set of packages (minimal install, or some variant thereof)
> does not really provide us what we need to build one or more products.'
> 
> What we really need as a base is a definition of the apis that are
> guaranteed to be stable and that the products and applications can rely
> on. Packages can to some extent serve as a proxy for that, but they are
> really just an implementation detail of how the product is put
> together.
> 
> For example, when you talk about an OS being systemd-based, the
> important part is not that systemd is part of the minimal install, but
> the fact that applications can rely on org.freedesktop.login1 and so on
> being available on the session bus, and that installing a unit file
> in /usr/lib/systemd/system is the proper way to make a service known to
> the system, etc.
> 
> There will of course be APIs that are product-specific. Eg, the server
> product might define a remote management api that is not relevant for a
> workstation. And desktop applications running on the workstation need to
> know which session services they can rely on.

I agree, I mentioned it in the meeting - we should define it more in the
terms of interfaces over packages. As an example I can use sendmail we had
a long discussion about a few month before. If we define some sort of MTA
has to be part of the base design, there's no reason to argument, if it
has to be sendmail or any other solution. Just something has to be there.
On the other hand - at least in the beginning, basing it on packages is
not a bad way how to kick it off. But one day we should go back and take
a look on the packages, take a look on what these packages provide and
try to set default expectation of APIs we have. That's pretty similar
to the initial proposal from the last FUDCon, I'll try to dig out the
etherpad...

Jaroslav

> 
> 
> Just my 2 cents, Matthias
> 
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