Re: [RFC] Plan to delete ShellBinPkg from edk2/master

[Laszlo Ersek <lersek@redhat.com>]

On 04/02/19 07:38, Bi, Dandan wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> ShellBinPkg is the remaining binary package in Edk2 repo.  We plan to delete ShellBinPkg from edk2/master, and keep source ShellPkg only in edk2 repo.
> Before the deletion, I will update the existing consumers in Edk2 and Edk2Platforms to use ShellPkg directly.
> 
> If you have any concern please raise here before mid-April . If there is no concern, I will create patches for this task after mid-April.
> 
> Bugzilla for this task:
> https://bugzilla.tianocore.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1675

(adding a few CC's)

I think we should not remove ShellBinPkg without a replacement *somehwere*.

A shell binary that is built from a validated edk2 tree, with a set of
library resolutions and PCD settings that are known to keep platform
dependencies *out* of the shell binary, is extremely useful.

IIRC, Andrew suggested earlier that we should treat the shell even as an
"OS", with better compatibility standards than we currently maintain.

I think we should only remove ShellBinPkg if we permanently offer a
separate download location instead, and we rebuild the shell binary from
"ShellPkg/ShellPkg.dsc" at every stable tag.

In that case, removing ShellBinPkg would indeed improve the edk2 tree,
in my opinion.

Thanks,
Laszlo