RPM roadmapping

[Jeff Spaleta]

On 7/27/07, Topher <javert42 at cs.byu.edu> wrote:
> Couldn't this been done with reference counting, like is done with
> garbage collection?  It seems to me to be applicable, proven, and simple.

Reference counting what exactly? Keeping up with the number of
dependencies on a package is not hard. In fact we already have tools
that find leaves in the tree. That's not the problem. The problem is
protecting leaves that users care about from auto-cleanup. If we just
vacuumed up leaf nodes in the packaging tree willy-nilly normal users
would see applications they care about depopulated from the menus.
Developers would see libraries and development packages they need
depopulated from their workstations.  If we had a way to protect
certain leaves in the tree from auto-cleanup, then we avoid all of
these complications.

The only way we know if a user cares about a package is if it was
explicitly requested to be installed (or explicitly told the rpmdb to
protect that package from auto-cleanup if we want to get picky).
Right now the is no way to query rpmdb about whether a package was
installed explicitly or was implicitly included through depsolving.
That's the key idea here... marking the 10% or so of packages a
user/admin/trained-monkey has explicitly asked to be
installed/protected so that we can auto garbage collect we aren't
throwing out things we care about.

-jef