Patent ID: 8490082

Claim:
A method for managing software packages by an existing software package management system, the method comprising: retrieving at least one application comprising an existing software structure, wherein the application is being managed by an existing management system, and wherein the existing software structure comprises a set of application files, a set of specification files, and a set of script files; creating a user process package with a list of user processes required to be already running for an installation of the application to succeed on a user system, and creating a system capability package with a list of conflicts that will cause an installation of the application to fail on a user system, wherein the user process package and the system capability package are created in a package structure format equivalent to the existing software structure; placing, in the package structure format, a set of data files defining a user process and a system capability into a location corresponding to a location in the existing software structure maintained for the set of application files, wherein the placing creates interdependencies between the data files, the user process package and the system process package; and storing the least one of a user process package and a system capability package on an information system being managed by the existing software management system, wherein the storing extends the existing software management system to manage existing software structures with run-time information dependencies.