[sugar] Updating an activity with a .xo file

[John (J5) Palmieri]

On Wed, 2007-08-22 at 13:59 -0400, Eben Eliason wrote:
> This is an interesting question.  We're so used to overwriting old
> versions with new ones, but it's not quite so simple.  In an
> environment where we'd like kids to be able to create, modify, and
> redistribute activities, I Alice wouldn't want Bobby's technically
> newer version of the Paint activity to overwrite her "real" copy.  I'm
> not sure the details of the bundle versioning system, but it should
> handle this case somehow.  There's also the possibility of
> backwards/forwards compatibility, which is best to maintain as much as
> possible, but might not always be so simple (especially since formats
> and protocols might have to change when adding collaboration, etc.).
>  There's some possibility that old documents can only open with an
> older activity, right? 
> 
> 
> In either case, it seems we should automatically install the new
> version, but I'm not sure if it should overwrite the old, unless
> perhaps it has the same signature?  Even then?
> 
> 
> - Eben

It isn't solved just yet but sugar should be able to determine which
version to run (usually the latest one) so we can keep older versions
around and use the journal to determine when they should be culled much
like how we do for data.  Also since updates should be using hard
linking for files with the same sha1 signature (i.e. duplicate files)
and not all files change from update to update we should be able to keep
disk space usage fairly small depending on the activity.

-- 
John (J5) Palmieri <johnp at redhat.com>