[wpkg-users] Newbie question: Package Naming Best Practices?

[Malte Starostik]

I use a scheme somewhat inspired by how Gentoo Linux name their packages.  The 
packages are named like:

admin/tightvnc
arch/7-zip
media/vlc
web/firefox
web/firefox/addon/adblockplus
os/winxp/kb123456
etc.

Same goes for profile names that pull in the respective package(s).
Some profiles exist for frequently used package combinations and default 
setups, most of them directly inherit from a profile "base" by depending on 
it.  "base" in turn depends on "env" which pulls in no packages but defines 
variables like %SOFTWARE%.
I use the original package versions as revision numbers, only adjusted should 
their syntax be impractical for comparisons.  Should a package change without 
a real upgrade of the software it installs, e.g. due to changed administrative 
settings or fixes to the package, I append a local revision number like this 
for Firefox: 3.6.2 => 3.6.2-r1 - again inspired by Gentoo practise.
Exceptions exist, like for MS Office I tag the major version into the package 
name to allow for clients with 2003 while others get 2007:
office/ms-office/2003
office/ms-office/2008

Kind regards,
Malte

Am Mittwoch, 31. März 2010 21:43:40 schrieb donotcare at fastmail.fm:
> Thanks to the WPKG wiki and the mailing list archives, I've got WPKG
>  basically working in a small office deployment.  Thanks to the developers
>  for your work!
> 
> But I'm still not clear on the best general way to manage the <package>
>  tags in packages.xml for smooth updates.  Do you usually have the package
>  id & name be more generic, and just use the revision attribute to manage
>  version upgrade? Or do you create a new package for every patch level,
>  resulting in a bunch of package entries for each piece of software?
> 
> For example, take the wiki's silent install example for Java...
> 
>   <package id="java6" name="Java Runtime Environment 6 Update 19"
>  revision="19" [...]
> 
> Works easily for now, but what happens when JRE 7 comes out?  Do you just
>  add a new "java7" package to packages.xml?  Do you also remove the "java6"
>  package from the file?  Would it be better to, instead, have something
>  more generic like:
> 
>   <package id="java" name="Sun JRE" revision="01061900">
> 
> And then just increment the revision as updates come out?
> 
> Also what about things like the latest Adobe Reader 9.3.1 which is just a
>  patch?  The wiki example adds the patch into the existing "adobereader93"
>  package entry, but doesn't that cause people who already have 9.3.0 to
>  have it re-installed first?  Would it make more sense to put the 9.3.1
>  patch into a separate package, and give it a <depends> tag pointing back
>  to 9.3?
> 
> I guess i'm just looking for a rule of thumb on a consistent way to
>  add/modify package entries as updates come out.  The examples I've seen
>  all vary quite a bit in their approaches and I don't know what's best.
> 
> Thanks & sorry for the wordy post...