Request for Comments: updating RPMs using binary deltas

[Lamar Owen]

On Friday 09 January 2004 10:13 am, Lamar Owen wrote:
> IMO the consequences are minimal for mirror operators.  Developers of
> update tools (like yourself) would have more of a job; and that is probably
> why you are in principle opposed since it would create more work for you as
> a developer.

Ok, here's what I am going to do.  I build RPMsets for PostgreSQL.  I am quite 
a bit behind schedule right now, but when I get back on schedule I'm going to 
see about how much savings an rpmdiff tool (which I would provide with the 
PostgreSQL RPMs) would be for distribution of PostgreSQL RPMs.  I'll provide 
full downloads, but also diffs to known baselines.  Since I have carte 
blanche in the PostgreSQL project on RPM distribution, I can do this any way 
I see fit, and see how the users react.  There are some good guys that can 
test it for me, and we'll go from there.  Whether it's ever adopted by Fedora 
as a whole, I can do it for my stuff.  And if it helps people get the update 
quicker, well, that's good enough for me.

With the whole PostgreSQL RPMset, including source RPM, for a single 
distribution weighing in at about 27MB packed, it makes a good mid-size 
package to test with.
-- 
Lamar Owen
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC  28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu