chbarts wrote:
" I think the potted example on the web page is somewhat poor, as it seems to be a problem existing package management systems already solve.
The more interesting aspect is the sandboxing, and how this is great for one-off software runs where it isn't worth it to install the needed packages on your base system because they're logically just a unit with the software you're testing. You mention this, but I think you'd do well to make it more obvious.
This is also, and this is something you mention, a way of preserving historic software and data. Bundle a full CDE package with an emulator and you can keep running that program for even longer; in fact, it seems a CDE package could gradually grow layers as time demands, from moving a (user-mode) kernel in, to adding device emulation, to going the final step and making the package more-or-less a ship in a bottle running in full hardware emulation.
This could also grow into a way to run untrusted (or minimally-trusted) software in an iron box, not just a sandbox. But that is harder and probably not your preferred direction."