[sugar] Activity versioning schema

[Michael Stone]

>I fail to see what makes the XO case different from the rest of the
>software world - from the pages you link

I agree that the pages I cited presuppose that you understand how our
requirements differ from those of the rest of the world.

Some specific examples:

  - Our users often can't make informed decisions about what software
    they should be running.

  - Our users probably do not have root on their machines, yet still
    need to perform package-management-like tasks.

  - In addition to accepting code hierarchically from upstream
    providers, we want to share code fluidly between XOs.

  - We want the software we provide to support a higher standard of
    security (defined in Bitfrost) than other systems strive to provide.

  - We must attempt to minimize bandwidth usage while moving bits
    around and must tolerate long networking delays.

  - We cannot rely on any established public key infrastructure to
    verify the identities of code providers or the authenticity of the
    code they are providing.

  - We expect users will be constantly redistributing modified versions
    of software that they downloaded to their systems.

  - We expect that our user groups will, in general, NOT share common
    languages with one another (or, necessarily, with us).

  - We expect that many users will be translating their own software.

  - We MAY NOT assume that users have global connectivity with which to
    satisfy dependencies, verify claims about information, distribute
    their work, etc.

For these reasons, in my humble opinion, choosing our software packaging
format and guidelines (of which version numbering is but a single
aspect) is NOT A TRIVIAL EXERCISE and is not as simple as picking an
off-the-shelf format. (I wish that the reality were otherwise). 

Do you require more justification?

Regards,

Michael
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