Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 22-Jan-2003
The OpenPKG project releases version 1.2 of the
unique cross-platform software packaging facility.
http://www.openpkg.org/ — Munich, DE — January 22, 2003 — The
OpenPKG project is proud to announce version 1.2 of its OpenPKG
software. A flexible and powerful software packaging facility, OpenPKG
eases the cross-platform installation and administration of Unix
software.
Consolidating different vendor approaches into a unified architecture,
it serves system administrators of large networks previously burdened
by non-conforming systems. OpenPKG leverages proven technologies like
Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) and provides an additional system layer
on top of the operating system. With OpenPKG, a unique method of
cross-platform software deployment is taking form.
Administrators using OpenPKG 1.2 benefit from official support on
FreeBSD 4.7 and 5.0, Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 and 3.0, and Sun Solaris 8
and 9. Thanks to its portable nature, other platforms with limited
support include NetBSD, OpenBSD, RedHat Linux, HP Tru64, SCO UnixWare
and QNX.
WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 1.2
Over the last 5 months, since the release of OpenPKG 1.1, the official
OpenPKG repository has grown from 320 to over 450 packages. From this
packaging pool 185 release-grade CORE and BASE classified packages
were carefully selected for inclusion into the official OpenPKG 1.2
release. These packages are fully supported on all of the above six
platforms, including full security tracking and updating until at
least two forthcoming releases are based on it.
An additional 176 PLUS classified packages were identified which are
provided for convenience reasons as an unsupported set of add-on
packages to OpenPKG 1.2. So, in total OpenPKG 1.2 consists of 361
released packages which include proven versions of popular Unix
software like Apache, BIND, GCC, GnuPG, MySQL, OpenSSH, Perl, Postfix,
Samba and teTeX — all carefully packaged for easy deployment.
Additionally, several new appealing features are introduced with
OpenPKG 1.2. A new approach for package option handling now allows
flexibility and precise building and dependency tracking of package
build-time variations. The most prominent example is the "apache"
package, by default providing only a bare-bone Apache installation.
Through the simple specification of up to 44 build-time options the
administrator easily can build a fully customized variation which
could include mod_ssl, mod_php and more.
The packaging of the Perl language was fully reorganized and extended
to now optionally provide 220 proven extension modules from CPAN,
clustered into 25 OpenPKG packages.
An additional utility package "openpkg-tool" eases maintenance of
whole OpenPKG instances, and can especially be useful in updating
packages with complex dependencies and used build options.
Finally, a new faking "syslog" package allows an administrator to
redirect log entries of lots of daemons that would otherwise wind up
in the generic syslog facility of the underlying operating system.
HIGHLIGHTS OF OPENPKG
* Entirely based on Open Source Software technology.
* Portable across mostly all major Unix platforms.
* Official support for FreeBSD 4/5, Debian 2/3 and Solaris 8/9.
* Minimum operating system intrusion.
* Minimum overhead in software packaging.
* Easy installation, updating and deinstallation of packages.
* Over 360 carefully selected and released packages available.
* Bundled with useful package preconfigurations.
* Support for multiple system instances.
* Support for proxy packages.
* Support for build-time variations of packages.
* Abstracted run-command facility.
ABOUT THE OPENPKG PROJECT
OpenPKG is a software packaging facility for Unix computers, and
targets the major server platforms FreeBSD, Linux and Solaris. While
internally based on RPM version 4, OpenPKG is a fully self-contained
system with minimal dependencies (no RPM preinstallation required)
and installs itself by means of a tricky bootstrapping procedure.
OpenPKG eases and controls the management of a large or diverse base
of software across one or more of its supported platforms.
OpenPKG is a project founded 2000 by Cable & Wireless Germany's
Internet Services division. In January 2002 it was released by
Cable & Wireless to the public as Open Source software. Since then
OpenPKG is maintained and improved by its original developers and
contributors from the Open Source community and is a mature technology
in production use. OpenPKG is the brainchild of Ralf S. Engelschall,
team leader of Development in Internet Services and principal author
of numerous other widely used Open Source Software technologies
like Apache SSL/TLS Engine (mod_ssl), Apache URL Rewriting Engine
(mod_rewrite), GNU Portable Threads (Pth), GNU Portable Shell Tool
(Shtool), and Website META Language (WML).
MORE INFORMATION
The OpenPKG Project
Ralf S. Engelschall
rse@openpkg.org
+49-89-92699-251 (CET)
+49-172-8986801 (CET)
