[Guy Harris <gharris@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Jul 29, 2000 at 03:06:45PM +0900, Richard Sharpe wrote:
> For example, the HP-UX, Digital UNIX, and so on, versions?

I'm not an HP-UX expert, but I presume the form of the HP-UX packages is
described by the page at

	http://hpux.u-aizu.ac.jp/hppd/standard.html

(or any of the other mirrors - that one's probably the closest to you).

The "Software Distributor" they refer to on that page is presumably the
HP OpenView Software Distributor:

	http://www.openview.hp.com/products/softdist/

which "provides powerful, centralized UNIX(R) software distribution
capabilities, scalable to handle software management tasks across the
entire enterprise".

There's a huge manual for it (12.3MB of PDF), which discusses the
packaging format, which is claimed to be "the basis for Electronic
Software Distribution in the IEEE Posix 1387.2 Software Administration
Standardization"; I don't know whether anybody other than HP have
implemented that standard.

It appears to be Yet Another UNIX Packaging Format, in the form of a
gzipped tarball with the package itself plus all sorts of description
files, install scripts, etc..

An Open Group document, "Systems Management: Distributed Software
Administration (XDSA)", is based on 1387.2; see

	http://www.opengroup.org/publications/catalog/c701.htm

The document discusses the format.

I've no idea who (other than HP) uses it; SVR4 and the various free
UNIXes have their own versions.