From owner-freebsd-arch Tue Jul 9 15:30:40 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7EF1237B400; Tue, 9 Jul 2002 15:30:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail3.panix.com (mail3.panix.com [166.84.1.74]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E193B43E3B; Tue, 9 Jul 2002 15:30:35 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from rsi@panix.com) Received: from panix1.panix.com (panix1.panix.com [166.84.1.1]) by mail3.panix.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 25E2F981D5; Tue, 9 Jul 2002 18:30:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from rsi@localhost) by panix1.panix.com (8.11.3nb1/8.8.8/PanixN1.0) id g69MUZu18917; Tue, 9 Jul 2002 18:30:35 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <200207092230.g69MUZu18917@panix1.panix.com> X-Authentication-Warning: panix1.panix.com: rsi set sender to rsi@panix.com using -f To: "Artem Tepponen" Cc: "Doug Barton" , "Garrett Wollman" , , Subject: Re: Package system flaws? References: <5235EF9BAE6B7F4CB3735789EEF73B296E614A@turtle.egar.egartech.com> From: Rajappa Iyer Date: 09 Jul 2002 18:30:35 -0400 Reply-To: rsi@panix.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG "Artem Tepponen" writes: > > From: Rajappa Iyer [mailto:rsi@panix.com] > > It seems to me that the solution is staring us right in the face. > > Currently, the ports mechanism already separates data and metadata. > > IMHO, the best solution is to extend the ports mechanism so that it > > can be told to fetch and install binaries instead of building it > > locally. IOW, perhaps one additional file per port and some > > additional rules in bsd.port.mk. > > > > This seems to me to be the cleanest solution. > Unfortunately this doesn't solve third party packages problem well. > Note: ports do have freebsd maintainers but packages may not (well, > there should be possibility for standalone thirdparty packages). Well, recall that we do have ports that install third-party binaries (e.g. netscape). I agree that someone has to create a port entry for the package, but then someone has to create the package too. The only problem with the ports approach is that you have to have the ports tree locally installed. But this is not materially different from, say, Debian's apt approach which maintains a local copy of the database of all available packages from a particular source. I'm going to think about this concept a little more and see if I can't come up with something. rsi -- a.k.a. Rajappa Iyer. They also surf who stand in the waves. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message