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.Open source technology is now available through a completely new install mechanism (RPM's). More information can be found here: http://ibm.biz/ibmi-rpms
These RPM's address your primary concerns, as the install of open source is now greatly simplified. It is also chroot-friendly, so you can preserve old versions of open source packages by simply installing the new version into a separate chroot jail. However, since we are not currently (or planning to) ship an archive of all past releases, this RFE is being marked as "declined."
I've since learned I had a wrong perception of needing to IPL. Thanks for clarifying.
Concerning only doing major versions as separately installable... I think it's important to look at the reason there are minor versions after a major version; namely, bugs. Each bug fix could introduce new bugs and I should be able to easily do a/b testing before I move my code forward to a new version.
It would be great to eventually get to the point of using tools like/similar to nvm (https://github.com/creationix/nvm).
IBM will provide multiple installable versions only for major versions that affect compatibility (such as Node 0.12 alongside Node 4.0 or Python 2 alongside Python 3). Minor bugfix versions will not be made to be co-installable. Regarding IPL issues, none of the OPS PTFs should require an IPL. If you continue to have IPL issues, please contact IBM support in the future
I have not experienced having to IPL to install the PTF's for node.
But I back the request to be able to have different versions of node (and the other OSS) installed concurrently. This will make testing new versions and fallback to previous versions much easier.
Creating a new RFE based on Community RFE #89473 in product IBM i.