From owner-freebsd-ports Tue May 29 13:25:13 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from idiom.com (idiom.com [216.240.32.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 64A0637B422 for ; Tue, 29 May 2001 13:25:10 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from rdm@cfcl.com) Received: from cfcl.com (cpe-24-221-169-54.ca.sprintbbd.net [24.221.169.54]) by idiom.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id NAA15560 for ; Tue, 29 May 2001 13:25:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [192.168.168.205] (cerberus [192.168.168.205]) by cfcl.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f4TKQW997159 for ; Tue, 29 May 2001 13:26:34 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from rdm@cfcl.com) Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <00f601c0e879$82aaeaa0$931576d8@inethouston.net> References: <20010528105709.A9284@c187104187.telekabel.chello.nl> <00f601c0e879$82aaeaa0$931576d8@inethouston.net> Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 13:19:17 -0700 To: ports@FreeBSD.ORG From: Rich Morin Subject: Re: XML-based ports system ? Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At 2:56 PM -0500 5/29/01, David W. Chapman Jr. wrote: >This might be somthing to propose to openpackages.org as I don't think >anything is going to change drastically in the ports system until >openpackages is implemented. The peculiar thing about the Ports Collection is that the real value lies in 5000+ tiny little directories, rather than in the massive Makefiles that Jordan and friends created. Each of the little files contains a small amount of information about a given package, mixed in with information about FreeBSD (where things are stored, etc.). The ideal situation (IMHO) would be to separate the package and OS information as much as possible. This would make it possible for the same package description to handle a range of OS targets. This is a difficult thing to accomplish, however, and may take a few years of careful development. In the meanwhile, why not do a few, trivial things that will allow all of the BSDs to stop duplicating effort? In short, I think I would rather see the OpenPackages folks take the (relatively) small step needed to join the current Ports collections. With that out of the way, a move to an abstract system would be far simpler to accomplish. -r -- http://www.cfcl.com/rdm - home page, resume, etc. http://www.cfcl.com/Meta/md_fb.html - The FreeBSD Browser email: rdm@cfcl.com; phone: +1 650-873-7841 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ports" in the body of the message