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Date: Sun, 13 May 2007 21:13:51 -0700
From: Tim Kientzle <kientzle@freebsd.org>
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Subject: Re: New FreeBSD package system (a.k.a. Daemon Package System (dps))
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Duane Whitty suggested:
 > I'm a little out of practice, however, perhaps the routines
 > that manipulate the ports meta-data could be sufficiently
 > agnostic about how the data is being manipulated that it
 > would facilitate experimentation with different
 > back-ends at a later time....

Yes.  This is an excellent idea.  I wrote up some of my own
ideas in this direction a few years ago:

http://people.freebsd.org/~kientzle/libarchive/libpkg.3.txt

The basic idea was, as you say, to provide an abstract interface
that separates the data storage from what the tools require.
Unfortunately, libarchive (which started as part of a package
tools overhaul) has absorbed more time than I expected, so I've
not had a chance to get back to these ideas.

Tim Kientzle