[3246] in Release_7.7_team
Dealing with Linux Athena and restricted packages.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Cattey)
Fri Apr 26 16:07:06 2002
From: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
To: release-team@mit.edu
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Date: 26 Apr 2002 16:07:03 -0400
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Currently, if someone uses the Linux Athena installer from off campus,
the install will blow out when it attempts to install restricted
packages:
motif libraries
voldump
transcript
synctree
Restricting these packages was done so that we could conscience delivery
of Linux Athena to a possibly large audience while obeying MIT-only
licensing.
Because we expected the Solaris demand to be much smaller, we
implemented no restrictions on the Solaris install.
I believe that when the new installer becomes available, more people off
campus will be wanting to do a Linux Athena install. Clearly having
a blowout part way through is bad.
One way to handle the problem is to add code to the installer to say,
"You're trying to do an install from off campus. Sorry, no can do."
and exit.
I'd like to propose a different way to handle the problem, that gets
implemented in multiple phases:
1. Eliminate Transcript, the proprietary voldump (in favor of
OpenAFS version, I expect), and the Motif libraries from the Athena
Linux install.
2. Turn off restriction.
3. Begin coding a synctree replacement.
When I discussed this informally with amb, his first response was to see
what ghudson thought to see if this seemed reasonable.
I remember people often discussing how synctree has wormed its way into
our system, but how it doesn't work exactly how we would like, and how
our changes were disagreed with by the original author. Making it MIT
only was the way we dealt with the situation owing to scarce developer
resources.
I remember people around the table discussing free Athena worrying that
unrestricted deployment of Linux was going to be a big problem because
we could expect so many more Linux users than Solaris users. More than
a year into it, I've measured equal numbers of Suns and Linux boxes.
Still, if we make the easy-to-use installer available, the number of
Linux Athena systems may at long last take off.
QUESTION:
Does the 3 phase solution sound reasonable?
-wdc
