From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Apr 12 20:41:02 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 06B7B16A4CE; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 20:41:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp0.server.rpi.edu (smtp0.server.rpi.edu [128.113.53.41]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9F25443D45; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 20:41:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from drosih@rpi.edu) Received: from [128.113.24.47] (gilead.netel.rpi.edu [128.113.24.47]) by smtp0.server.rpi.edu (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id i3D3f0Ed023843; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 23:41:00 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: drosih@mail.rpi.edu Message-Id: Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 23:40:59 -0400 To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org From: Garance A Drosihn Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" X-Scanned-By: CanIt (www . canit . ca) Subject: Second "RFC" on pkg-data idea for ports X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 03:41:02 -0000 [this is BCC'ed to -hackers and -arch just so everyone has a chance to see it, but I expect the bulk of the discussion should take place on the freebsd-ports mailing list] Back in January I send out a long-ish email asking for feedback on some ideas I had for the ports-collection. I received a fair number of comments, and have finally re-organized my ideas into a few web pages. Hopefully these will make more sense. Initially I had written the ideas up as a bunch of Wiki pages, but the machine holding that Wiki died, taking with it all the pages I had written... I have not proof-read the web pages, so there's probably some spelling mistakes and odd sentences on them. Apologies for that, but I wanted to get *something* sent out this week. This project has been blocked due to a lack of time on my part, and I want to get it moving again... The basic idea is to collapse many of the separate files for a port into a single pkg-data file. The web pages explain why I think this might be worth doing. Please check them out at: http://people.freebsd.org/~gad/PkgData/ Some of the work for this has been done, mainly just to see how well it might work out. The project is still probably more work than Darren and I can finish, so we might limit ourselves to a subset of the idea. For instance, we might start out by just collapsing the distinfo, pkg-plist, and "files/patches-*" files into a pkg-data file, and leave the other files for some later project. What I'd like is some idea of whether this project is worth pursuing. If not, then Darren and I will concentrate on some other, less disruptive project. If people like the general idea of this project, then we'll see how much of we can do. If we have some of the details wrong, then let us know what we need to change or where we need to look for more information. I know that I am not a full-fledged expert in every facet of the ports collection, and I am not looking to ram some ideas down everyone's throat. I just think that some change like this one could be useful for the ports collection, and I'm trying to come up with something that everyone sees as useful. If this project does not seem like it would be worth the effort, then that will be perfectly okay too. Please let me know what you think. Also, please read the web pages before responding. It took me a fair amount of time to write the web pages that are there (as lame as they are...), and I'd rather not have to retype all of that into a long series of disjointed messages... -- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu