On Thu, 20 Mar 1997, John Birrell wrote:

> > 
> > I think the issues were:
> > 1) Precompiled ports will be *huge* due to the number of NetBSD platforms, so
> >    builds will probably have to be done on the user's machine. 
> 
> If you do it the FreeBSD way, you have the ability to build on the
> user's machine (by using the Makefiles in the ports tree and fetching
> the author's src tar balls via ftp or from CD) or precompiled binaries
> (in the package tree which becomes large but nice folk like Walnut
> Creek CDROM supply CDs for that).
> 
I can't disagree there. (my boss might if I say "Hey, can I have a 9gig disk
for the NetBSD mirror?" but that's different... :) )

> > 2) Nobody could agree on where "stuff" should get installed. Do binaries
> >    go in /usr/local/bin or /usr/local/PKGNAME/bin, with a link in
> > /usr/local/bin? What about the oddball case where somebody wants to do
> >    something different*? Who dislikes /opt/BLAHblah/*?
> 
> This seems to be the issue that NetBSD always stumbles on.
> I happily use FreeBSD's system which populates /usr/local. Beyond
> that I don't care. Let's do a monkey-see-monkey-do on this one.
> 
Not to mention that we could relitively easily ask questions about base
dirs, etc.

> > 3) Many packages have lots of configuration options. How do you select which
> >    options should be used? Ease of changing these options? Is a GUI/CUI
> >    needed for this?
> 
> FreeBSD makes a pretty good stab at that. When building a port that
> d*mned thing asks questions! With pre-built packages you get a "typical" 
> version with all those questions answered.
> 
Once again. Not a bad idea. If nothing else, we can TRY. If people need to 
set options by hand, they have to set options by hand. I don't think that 
it's realistic to want any and all software just "work" when you type
make. I do however think that a little more organization and packaging 
would be a good thing.

> > 4) Satisfying all of these issues becomes a pain in the arse for the person 
> >    who creates the package -> fewer packages are created.
> 
> And provided that it is someone else's pain, that's OK by me. 8-)
> Given an opportunity, I think there are people who would be
> prepared to suffer some pain for the "good of the cause".
> 
Well, if we do this right we're talking about a small amount of extra work.
And if we want to add it to the ports collection, that means that somebody 
among us can do this stuff and hand it back to the package creator if he/she
doesn't want to do it...

I know that a lot of NetBSD hackers take a measure of pride in having to
hack some stuff out and not have it pre-packaged. Hell, I do. But it is
true that if we do start packaging some stuff our installed base will
increase. If that happens it means that many more people to help with
development and that many more neat things like this deal with DEC.

rob

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