Software manager in OpenSuse 10.3

The software management for OpenSuse 10.3 is in heavy development. Compared to 10.2 zmd was dropped, leaving yast and zypper. Both work now basically.
Background OpenSuse’s software management was in heavy development since Novell took over Suse. For OpenSuse 10.0 and 10.1 yum and especially XML Package metadata (often called “yum metdata) support was included as an option. Later on, the XML Package metadata became the new standard format for all OpenSuse versions. But the old formats, namely the old yast format, where still there and had to be managed as well. Additionally, a variety of tools were included into OpenSuse. Especially OpenSuse 10.2 hat no less than 6 tools which could manage the software, with three of them (semi-) official. And not all of them where compatible to the others, and changes made in one tool were not necessarily seen by...