free hosting   image hosting   hosting reseller   online album   e-shop   famous people

Universal Package Delivery System

A concept by Tjaart Blignaut
Completed On Monday, May 15, 2006 2:42 AM

Short Abstract

The concept of UPDS, as I will be refering to it in the following paper, is web based access to software installation. It enables a user to browse the web and install applications regardless of the location of the actual location of the software, it's dependencies, and the platform of the user computer. This will fuse the user friendly interface of the web with numerous open source deployment interfaces.

Motivation

In the fast paced world we live in today productivity is at the centerpoint of every person's goals. In order to be productive on a personal computer, one needs applications. The best place to get applications is from the web. In the windows environment the user is able to go to various web sites and download applications, without worrying about the various underlying deployment techniques used in the world of windows programming.

One might say that this is a very effective way of getting applications, but the question that is asked here is whether it can compare with open source operating system deployment technologies. The fact in open source is that many applications developers keep their applications in source code format, and more than often on public repositories such as sourceforge. The dilemna when the end user sees applications on such a webpage, they might not be informed enough to choose the right operating system, architecture, and so forth. I will propose a solution to this dilemna.

Another problem that one encounter is the differences between the way different operating systems deploy their software. FreeBSd for instance has two seperate methods of deployment, namely the ports system and the packages system. Each has it's place in the open source world, and each works very well on it's own. If an end user encounters one interface, and then moves t another operating systems, for whatever reason, that user might have to relearn all the ins and outs of the deployment technologies of that operating system.

Using links to get software

My proposal is very simple. An html link that activates an outside client program that then does all neccesary processing in order to grab the package that was requested by the user. Here is a fictitious example of such a link:

<a href="pkg://multimedia.supervideoplayer.stable.src">Install super video player now!</a>

Explanation

pkg:// is a protocol indicator, and though this is contrary to the use of links, it does present a way to show the browser that it cant handle the incoming requested link. The browser then passes the rest of the link to an external client program, which would most likely be the package management system of the operating system in question

Category section: multimedia

In order to avoid name conflicts, categories must exist for the system to work, a named category is human readable and more easier to debug, if there is a typographical error for instance.

Name Section: supervideoplayer

This denotes the name of the program to be installed, this name is unique within the namespace of the category, if a name conflict does occur however, the client program is left with the duty of asking the user to clarify the ambiguity.

Version Section: stable

This states which version of the program is necessary, a stable version would be the latest stale version for a particular operating system.

Type Section: src

This field can only have 3 possible values, src, bin, doc. This allows the user to separately gather only necessary resources. An end user will most likely want a binary release, and a developer would like the sources and documentation.

Closing notes

With this system in place, one can add a link to an application, regardless of which operating system it is on. The link need not be updated when the program is updated, because the package manager handles the complete implementation of the link. If the application is not available for a platform, the package manager can inform the user that the application is unavailable.

#EOF