Re: Linux Core: a more detailed draft

[Nick Mathewson <nickm@mit.edu>]

john@dhh.gt.org wrote:
>Nick Mathewson writes:
>>    * [?] GPM
>
>Why?

George mentioned it (IIRC) in his previous email.  Actually, which
tools require GPM?  How version-critical is it?  I'm not sure this
is necessary either.

>.    * Compress
>
>Not free.

Really?  I was pretty sure there was a free clone somewhere.  What's
the license on ncompress?

[snip]
>>    * Every Core-compliant distribution must provide an upgrade
>>      mechanism sufficiently powerful to upgrade to a later version
>>      of the Core.
>
>You've already got tar.

But tar is insufficiently powerful for a number of applications
required by the core.  For instance, a single tar command can't
replace your libc, install a new kernel, upgrade ld.so and sysvinit,
run ldconfig, and so forth -- all of which could be necessary in
a core upgrade.

-- 
Nick