[packagekit] Status of the APT backend

[Matthias Clasen]

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 2:31 PM, Josselin Mouette <joss at debian.org> wrote:

>
>  I don't understand why PackageKit wouldn't be suitable to replace it. If
>  it can search packages, install and remove them, upgrade packages or the
>  distribution as a whole, there is no reason why it couldn't do the job.
>

For PackageKit to be successful it has to focus on nailing one use
case successfully, and the one that it started out with it
(semi-)automatic updates. Trying to shoehorn fully-fledged
"show-me-everything-about-the-packaging-system" tools like synaptic or
yumex on top of it is causing considerable feature drag. Just see the
feature requests we have seen here recently, about support lifetimes
and whatnot.
There is a very real danger that PackageKit will end up as a failure
if we don't focus on the 'packaging system neutral updater' use case.


Matthias