[GSoC][Binaries support] Architecture

[Joshua Root]

On 2011-3-26 12:28 , Felipe Tanus wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I started to think about an architecture for the binaries support
> project, and I would like to know your opinion at some points. I think
> it's easy to notice that the software has two distinct parts, the
> server and the client. The server is the build and distribution
> solution, and the client is the port modification and maybe the
> binary-only version. I'm splitting my ideas in these two areas.
> 
> About the server:
> 
> * Failures report: It might be obvious, but since it's not on the
> description in idea's list, I think the best way of notification is by
> e-mail. A public mail list can be created to spread this info, maybe
> at macosforge.

Making the failure details available on MPWA would also be good.

> * Compressing packages: I think it's a good idea use liblzma, like
> slackware and arch linux are doing. It has a great compression and low
> decompression time, and cost only a little more for compressing than
> usual.

Note that this would require the code to be added to base, since OS X
doesn't ship with lzma/xz. What's the licensing situation with that?
We'd really prefer to keep base fully BSD licensed.

> * Signed packages: I thought of it as signing at build time, with an
> GPG key. Not sure if it's the best.

Again, OS X doesn't ship with gpg, which is why the current archive
signature verification is done with openssl.

>      *The language must be TCL? Shouldn't we think about using C
> instead in the distribution service to avoid performance issues? The
> compiling itself might be in any language, I think, but since we
> already have MPAB let's keep in TCL.

MPAB itself is actually mostly bash scripts. What do you mean by the
"distribution service"?

- Josh