[Info-vax] Package management (was Re: VMS on Raspberry Pi 5)

[Dan Cross]

In article <wwvy1ew7md9.fsf at LkoBDZeT.terraraq.uk>,
Richard Kettlewell  <invalid at invalid.invalid> wrote:
>[snip]
>System V’s packages were, what, 1990 or so? So nearer a third of its
>current age I would say. I’m not even sure they were the first.

Maybe; it depends on how you define "package."  Two things
happened in relatively close temporal proximity that contributed
here: 1) we had vendors shipping closed-source Unix
distributions coupled with their hardware; and 2) we started to
have networks of Unix machines at a single site.

With these, it became pretty clear that we'd need some kind of
principled way to build deploy and maintain third-party software
packages and configuration data; a number of different
mechanisms were invented, some ad hoc and based on convention,
others based on the idea of bundling up "packages" (which could
help OEMs and third-party software vendors distribute their
software).  Work for this really started heating up in the mid-
to late-80s.

	- Dan C.