[maemo-developers] Busybox version

[From: Graham Cobb]

On Friday 15 August 2008 15:38:53 Eero Tamminen wrote:
> As this isn't anymore about Busybox, but the OS upgrades,
> I updated the subject.

I disagree, I am not interested in discussing OS upgrades.  I am interested in 
discussing the best way for Nokia and the community to work together so that 
the community can provide upgraded versions of the busybox applications, 
including how they can be installed and what may be the impact on the 
usability of the system.  While the original subject may not be ideal it is 
good enough.  

> In both cases either the binaries are locked, or Nokia trusts the
> replacements user installs to work well enough for the OS upgrade (whether
> they're implemented in Busybox case as symlink replacements or using
> Debian alternatives is irrelevant).

Yes, I would expect Nokia to trust community produced replacements for 
standard Unix utilities (the sort of thing included in busybox).  That 
constitutes a very small risk -- much less than the risk from allowing 
community packages to install files into /etc/rc*.  I would expect that any 
community replacement for a busybox application which did not work well would 
be very quickly spotted.

> To me it seems that basically you're saying that you want the upgrades
> regardless of how the system has been modified (preferably without
> losing your updates :-)), i.e. you don't want an OS upgrade, but
> something more similar to the regular Debian (security etc) updates
> you get with "apt-get update".

No, that is not what I am trying to achieve at all.  I am trying to come up 
with a mechanism which allows people to replace busybox applets with more 
powerful versions without disabling any system functions, including the 
normal upgrade route.  I am taking as my working assumption that that is a 
goal that Nokia also sees as reasonable and wants to co-operate with, not 
prevent.

I am not too bothered if the upgrade de-installs the upgraded programs and 
they have to be re-installed afterwards, if that is the way to get a workable 
solution.  I am, however, bothered if the installation of the full tar or ls 
results in a system which is less "supported" than the installation of any 
other community package.

> Marius is currently on vacation.  I guess he answers once he gets back.

I look forward to hearing his insight as to how the busybox replacement ideas 
interact with installation and upgrades.

Graham