Cross-platform packaging facility OpenPKG 2.1 released

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 20-Jul-2004

  The OpenPKG project releases version 2.1 of the
  unique cross-platform software packaging facility.

[HYPERLINK@www.openpkg.org] -- Munich, DE -- July 20, 2004 -- The
OpenPKG project is proud to announce version 2.1 of its OpenPKG
software, another evolutionary step after a series of five
predecessors within three 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 2.1

OpenPKG platform support has increased again and OpenPKG 2.1 is now
available for 21 different Unix flavors. Most notably, it is supported
on FreeBSD 4.10 and 5.2, Debian GNU/Linux 3.0, Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 3, Red Hat Fedora Core 2, SuSE Linux 9.1, and Sun Solaris 8 and
9. Additionally, all CORE and the vast majority of BASE class packages
are already available for the tentative platforms NetBSD 1.6.2, Debian
GNU/Linux 3.1, Gentoo Linux 1.4.16, Mandrake Linux 10.0, Sun Solaris
10 and HP HP-UX 11.11 and they are still available for the obsoleted
platforms Red Hat Linux 9, SuSE Linux 9.0, and Sun Solaris 2.6.

Since the previous release four months ago, the OpenPKG package
repository has again grown by 10%. A subset of 495 packages were
carefully selected for inclusion into the OpenPKG 2.1 release,
including latest versions of popular Open Source Unix software like
Apache, Bash, BIND, GCC, INN, Mozilla, MySQL, OpenSSH, Perl, Postfix,
PostgreSQL, Samba, Squid, teTeX and Vim.

The major technical efforts for this release were spent on the porting
of all packages to five additional Unix platforms and the necessary
adjustments to packages required by GCC 3.4.

Another key target of OpenPKG 2.1 is the availability of the
consolidated and packaged tool chain to the community. It consists of
all packaging tools used by the OpenPKG team, including their official
OpenPKG development shell ("openpkg dev"). This now enables everyone
to establish a local OpenPKG development environment, allowing the
creation of private packages, the modification of existing packages
and the maintenance of local changes.

VOICE OF THE SPONSOR

"The base of Unix server installations, which my datacenter services
team is responsible for, has been increased by a factor of 250%
during the last six months. Thanks to our continuous deployment of
OpenPKG, we were able to cope with this administration challenge
while retaining the high service quality with the existing number
of engineers."
                                    Hennie van den Berg,
                                    Director IT Services Europe,
                                    Cable & Wireless
HIGHLIGHTS OF OPENPKG

* Portable across major Unix flavors.
* Available for the supported platforms:
  FreeBSD 4.10/5.2, Debian Linux 3.0, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3,
  Red Hat Fedora Core 2, SuSE Linux 9.1 and Solaris 8 and 9.
* Already available for the tentative platforms:
  NetBSD 1.6.2, Debian GNU/Linux 3.1, Gentoo Linux 1.4.16,
  Mandrake Linux 10.0, Sun Solaris 10 and HP HP-UX 11.11.
* Still available for the obsoleted platforms:
  Red Hat Linux 9, SuSE Linux 9.0, and Sun Solaris 2.6.
* Entirely based on Open Source software technology.
* Minimum operating system intrusion and dependency.
* Minimum overhead in software packaging.
* All packages up-to-date with vendor versions as of 14-Jul-2004.
* Sources of 495 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 pre-configurations.
* Includes an abstracted and powerful run-command facility.
* Virtual hosting through multiple instances on a single system.
* Proxy packages for reusing packages across instances.
* Build-time package variations for maximum flexibility.
* Foundation to build encapsulated and self-contained environments.

HISTORY OF THE OPENPKG PROJECT

The OpenPKG project was founded in 2000 by Ralf S. Engelschall and
the sponsor Cable & Wireless. It was first released as Open Source
software in January 2002. Today OpenPKG is a mature technology in
production use, and is maintained and improved by its original
developers and volunteer contributors.

OpenPKG is the brainchild of Ralf S. Engelschall, principal author of
numerous other popular Open Source Software technologies like OSSP
components, Apache SSL/TLS Engine (mod_ssl), Apache URL Rewriting
Engine (mod_rewrite), GNU Portable Threads (Pth), GNU Portable Shell
Tool (Shtool), Website META Language (WML) and many more.

MORE INFORMATION

The OpenPKG Project
[e-mail:openpkg@openpkg.org]
+49-89-92699-251 (CET)
+49-172-8986801  (CET)