Re: [opensuse-project] LSB Package API

Hi, Some time ago, it was discussed on an LSB face-to-face meeting that an API should be developed that allows ISVs to install sotware packages which integrate into the package manager - the "Berlin Packaging API". While the idea seemed to be well received, there didn't seem much progress since then, except for a wiki page with a rundimentary proposal [1]. Considering that third-party software installation is an undeniably important weak spot of the Linux infrastructure, I found this was a shame. To reignite the the initiative, I decided to design and develop a prototype implementation of the Berlin API, most creatively named the "LSB Package API". It is designed as a simple D-Bus interface accompanied with an XML-based package description format. A detailed description and the source code can be found on this page: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/LSB_Package_API The implementation currently supports integration into RPM and dpkg; due to its modular nature, support for more package managers could be added later on. I hope this implementation will act as a starting point for resurrecting the Berlin API process. Let us overcome the "Third-party software installation on Linux sucks" problem and strive to a brave new world of easily distributable Linux software! ;)