Efforts/Packaging

Type: Effort Status: in progress Owner: Stephan Bergmann (Kay Ramme)

OpenOffice.org (OOo) and its derivatives are complex products. Many features, templates, configuration files, registry entries, binaries, localizations etc. need to be delivered and deployed in a reliable and platform compliant way, while giving the user broad choice regarding the particular features he wants to actually install.

OOos growing ecosystem brings the current approach to its limits, we are currently facing a set of problems, which the below proposed solution is going to address. OOo based products need to support different platforms (Operating System / Machine Architecture) as well as different deployment systems (e.g. RPM, Debian Packages, Ports, Solaris Packages, MS Windows Installer), localizations and feature sets, as well as they need to be easy to extend and maintain.

Goal

The Package Restructuring project aims to improve the overall OOo packaging structure, to

• ease testing,
• improve build performance,
• ease introduction of new, updated or derived products (shopping cart approach),
• simplify maintenance.

Problem

• Overlap of OOo and OOo based products, such as the URE, OOo[locale], StarOffice, OOo[machine] etc. and resulting issues, such that an OOo de may not be installed after an OOo en-US, because of conflicting packages.
• Custom brands and localization can only be provided as part of building OOo.
• High QA efforts, as every deliverable needs to be tested.
• Every update / patch as an independent product again.
• Extensions are not maintainable as system packages.

Solution

Step by step reduce the overall number of different packages (parts) by reducing redundancies, such as same files, same short cuts etc, by consolidating them into dedicated packages. E.g. different installation sets for different languages are going to share all but the locale specific packages (parts). QA efforts may than be reduced by deriving a products test status from the packages (parts) test status, means if all packages (parts) of a product have been tested, than the product has been tested.

Measure

The redundancy of packages (parts) may be measured by comparing packages (parts) content on a file basis. Ideally any two packages are either the same, sharing all their content, or they differ completely, not sharing any single file. Please find more details on the measure page.

Time Frame

First big changes are planned to be ready with OOo 3.0.

Tasks

Title	State	CWS	Owner	Release
Product Inventory	open	n/a	AK/MH?	immediate
Find a way to update MS Windows Installer Components in a product independent way	open			OOo 3.1
Localizations as Uno Packages	open
Adapt Product Creation
New scp linker	done	native99	is	OOo 3.0
Enable multipe root directories	done	native99	is	OOo 3.0
Enable multipe registry files ("services.rdb")	done	native99	is	OOo 3.0
Unique global IDs about all product definitions in scp-projects	done	native99	is	OOo 3.0
Remove automatic root assignment (can be easily enabled with new scp linker)	done	native99	is	OOo 3.0
Remove scp undefine feature (can be easily done with new scp linker)	done	native99	is	OOo 3.0
Unique files assignment (can be easily checked with new scp linker)	done	native99	is	OOo 3.0
Generate CABs by module	done	native100	is	OOo 3.0
Shift package lists, so that information is available in scp projects	done	native100	is	OOo 3.0
Introduction of language template modules in scp	done	native100	is	OOo 3.0
Automatic creation of language specific modules in scp	done	native100	is	OOo 3.0
Removing all language specific content from language independent packages	done	native110	is	OOo 3.0
Removing all "multi"-products in scp and instset_native (every file is in language dependent package)	done	native110	is	OOo 3.0
Removing Linux link RPMs (core03u, core04u and core05u)	done	native110	is	OOo 3.0
Integrate URE as own product into OpenOffice.org	in progress	native121	is	OOo 3.0
Prepare language selection in GUI installer with own dialog (no module selection)	in progress	native121	is	OOo 3.0
Creation of Windows Installer GUID generation process to guarantee constant GUIDs for components	in progress	native121	is	OOo 3.0
SCP monitor tools (many automatic scp controls are already available)	in_progress		is	OOo 3.0
Create Perl process to generate core package content from cvs module structure	done		is	OOo 3.0
Reorganization of core packages	open		is	OOo 3.0
Creation of products with URE, base packages and branding	style="background:lightgreen;" | done		IS/SB	OOo 3.0
Define new Package Structure
URE, Office, Brands	in progress
Analyze Locale, first steps because of introduction of new language packs	done	native110	is	OOo 2.4
Analyze Brand	open			OOo 3.0
Restructure scp corresponding to the new packages for library organization, locale and brands.	open			OOo 3.0
Separate URE
Adapt code base to OOo/etc. installations where the URE parts are installed separately from the rest (i.e., an OOo/etc. installation spans two directory trees).	done	sb71	sb	OOo 2.4
Separate Brand
Enable OOo code base to deal with separately installed brands.	done	sb83	sb	OOo 3.0
Split office products into URE/basis/brand	done		sb	OOo 3.0
Separate Machine (AKA NOARCH)
Identify Machine specific files	open			32/64bit deliverables
Separate 3rd Party Stuff (libxml, expat, freetype, ICU, ...)
Revise Product Definition
Model Products from a Program Managers Perspective	in progress		KR
Java Installer to support arbitrary repository and package managers	open
Java Installer to rely on provisions / dependencies only	open
Distribute packaging
Leverage Consolidated Package Structure
QA: Test every package only once.	started		KR
RE: Build every package only once.	open		is