From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 17 11:46:41 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A62E616A4CE for ; Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:46:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from postal3.es.net (postal3.es.net [198.128.3.207]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8B13143D1D for ; Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:46:41 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from oberman@es.net) Received: from ptavv.es.net ([198.128.4.29]) by postal3.es.net (Postal Node 3) with ESMTP (SSL) id IBA74465; Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:46:40 -0800 Received: from ptavv (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ptavv.es.net (Tachyon Server) with ESMTP id A6E6B5D04; Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:46:40 -0800 (PST) To: Miguel Mendez In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 17 Mar 2004 18:25:28 +0100." <1079544327.63000.5.camel@scienide.energyhq.es.eu.org> Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:46:40 -0800 From: "Kevin Oberman" Message-Id: <20040317194640.A6E6B5D04@ptavv.es.net> cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org cc: Johan Pettersson Subject: Re: Pkg-based base system. X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 19:46:41 -0000 > From: Miguel Mendez > Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 18:25:28 +0100 > Sender: owner-freebsd-current@freebsd.org > > On Wed, 2004-03-17 at 12:09, David O'Brien wrote: > > > 3. Sounds like you want Linux with its RPM's, not BSD. We consciously > > don't wrap the base system in pkg_add tarballs. We generally LIKE the > > entire system being a single integrated blob. > > Yes and no. Perl was removed from base, wasn't it? Anyone needing perl > can install install it from ports (read: it's one of the first ports > most people install). Why can't the same be applied to bind and > sendmail? Make them optional, at least. Most of the people I know never > bother with sendmail and go straight for postfix as soon as the system > is up. Having certain parts as optional and/or in packaged form can be > beneficial IMHO, without going to the extreme of having everything > packaged (e.g. libc, tcsh, etc). I think Colin's stuff deserves some > consideration before throwing the idea out. But, OTOH, if FreeBSD=20 > committers don't like the idea, one can always fork(2). Perl was a very difficult case. It can be argued that Perl is something that the vast majority of users want on a system, but it is rapidly developing code from outside of the BSD community. The inclusion of Perl in the base system and its use by the system/kernel build and other system tools made it almost impossible to update to new versions of Perl in a timely manner. After much discussion, it became apparent that having current Perl was very important and, if it was in the base system, it would almost certainly always lag behind where other tools required it to be. It gets especially bad when you go as long between major releases as we have between V4 and V5. 5.00503 is simply ancient! So the reason Perl was removed was NOT the reason people want to remove vi, BIND, gcc, etc. It was because people needed an up-to-date Perl and having it in the base system made that nearly impossible. -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634