Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 2005-10-19
The OpenPKG project releases version 2.5 of the
unique cross-platform software packaging facility.
http://www.openpkg.org/ — Munich, DE — 2005-10-19 — The
OpenPKG project is proud to announce version 2.5 of its software,
another evolutionary step after nine releases in four years.
Much valued by IT decision makers and beloved by Unix system
administrators, OpenPKG is the world leading instrument for deployment
and maintenance of Open Source Unix software when administration
crosses platform boundaries. The unique OpenPKG architecture leverages
proven technologies like Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) and OSSP
and GNU components to establish a unified software administration
environment, independent of the underlying Unix operating system.
NEW IN VERSION 2.5
This is the second release created by the recently established OpenPKG
Foundation e.V., which contributed a substantial amount of manpower
and all the technical resources making up the "build farm" and the
development environment for release engineering.
Since the previous release four months ago, the OpenPKG package
repository has grown to 904 packages. A subset of 579 packages were
carefully selected for inclusion into the OpenPKG 2.5 release,
including the latest versions of popular Open Source Unix software
like Apache, Bash, BIND, GCC, INN, MySQL, OpenSSH, Perl, Postfix,
PostgreSQL, Samba, Squid, teTeX and Vim.
Major technical efforts for this release were spent on migrating from
the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) version 3.4 to the latest version
4.0. This required a lot of vendor sources to be adjusted to pass
the stronger standard constraints of GCC 4.0. Additionally, generous
sponsoring from the industry allowed us to add back full official
support for the important Solaris 10/SPARC platform. On Solaris 10
we also finally switched OpenPKG from using legacy init-scripts to
the new Service Management Facility (SMF). Furthermore, this OpenPKG
version already fully supports the brand new FreeBSD 6.0 and SUSE
Linux 10.0 platforms.
OpenPKG 2.5 is available for 19 different Unix platforms. Most
notably, it is supported on FreeBSD 5.4 and 6.0, NetBSD 2.0.2,
Debian GNU/Linux 3.1, Fedora Core 4, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4,
SUSE Linux 10.0 and Sun Solaris 9 and 10. Additionally, all CORE and
the vast majority of BASE class packages are already available for
the tentative platforms FreeBSD 7.0, Gentoo Linux 1.12 and Mandriva
Linux 10.2. It is also still available for the obsolete platforms Sun
Solaris 8, FreeBSD 4.11 and SUSE Linux 9.3. Finally, OpenPKG CORE is
also known to work under IBM AIX 5.1, HP HP-UX 11.11 and MacOS X 10.3.
The OpenPKG 2.5 release was a joint effort of many individuals, most
notably the Release Engineering team of the OpenPKG Foundation e.V.
HIGHLIGHTS OF OPENPKG
* Portable across major Unix flavors.
* Supporting many commonly used platforms:
FreeBSD 5.4 and 6.0, NetBSD 2.0.2, Debian GNU/Linux 3.1,
Fedora Core 4, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, and Solaris 9 and 10.
* Additionally already available for the tentative platforms:
FreeBSD 7.0, Gentoo Linux 1.12 and Mandriva Linux 10.2.
* Additionally still available for the obsolete platforms:
FreeBSD 4.11, SUSE Linux 9.3 and Sun Solaris 8.
* Additionally known to partially work for the forthcoming platforms:
HP HP-UX 11.11, MacOS X 10.3 and IBM AIX 5.1
* Entirely based on Open Source technology.
* Minimum operating system intrusion and dependency.
* Minimum overhead in software packaging.
* All packages up to date with vendor versions as of 2005-10-16.
* Sources of 579 CORE+BASE+PLUS packages released.
* Binaries of CORE+BASE class packages provided for supported platforms.
* Binaries of CORE class packages provided for all platforms.
* Easy installation, updating and deinstallation of packages.
* Bundled with useful and secure package preconfigurations.
* Includes an abstracted and powerful run-command facility.
* Virtual hosting through multiple instances on a single system.
* Proxy package mechanism for sharing packages across instances.
* Build-time package variations for maximum flexibility.
* Foundation to build encapsulated and self contained environments.
HISTORY OF THE OPENPKG PROJECT
The Open Source software project OpenPKG was founded in 2000 by
Ralf S. Engelschall and first released to the public in January 2002.
Today OpenPKG is a mature technology in production use. It is
maintained and improved by its original developers, organized in
the OpenPKG Foundation e.V., and volunteer contributors.
HISTORY OF THE OPENPKG FOUNDATION
The OpenPKG Foundation e.V. is a nonprofit organization with the
dedicated goal of supporting the OpenPKG project. The idea to organize
the social network of OpenPKG was born by Ralf S. Engelschall and
Thomas Lotterer in January 2005. A month later, on 2005-02-09, nine
founders kicked off the Foundation. Official registration under German
law was completed on 2005-03-18. The OpenPKG Foundation finally went
public on 2005-06-21 and currently consists of eighteen members.
MORE INFORMATION
The OpenPKG Project OpenPKG Foundation e.V.
http://www.openpkg.org/ http://www.openpkg.net/
press@openpkg.org press@openpkg.net
+49-172-8986801 (CET) +49-172-8986801 (CET)
