Aleksandar Milivojevic wrote:
I guess anybody on dialup would vote for Solaris-style patches approach any day (although those can get just as big as original packages). Most people with high speed connections would probably opt for simplicity of the way it is currently done.
I agree, when I am at home (rural) I can not get a broadband connection, so SUSE-style patches would be nice.
How about this idea, that would be something like in the middle. Implementing a tool that could replace changed files inside binary RPM, producing new RPM (with bumped version) as output. That way you can either download a patch, or new RPM. If you download the patch, you generate new RPM by applying the patch against original distribution RPM. The only difference from downloaded updated package would be missing signature. This isn't a big deal because there were signatures on both the patch and the original RPM, and user can sign resulting RPM with his own PGP key. The rest of the patching process is the same as now (install updated RPM, either downloaded one, or the one generated using the patch).
I like this idea. No changes necessary to rpm. Though probably some added rules to yum and up2date.
