>Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 01:35:15 -0500
>From: "Kevin P. Neal" <kpneal@pobox.com>

>Hasn't this been discussed before?

Yes, this particular dead horse bears many scars from previous
beatings.

>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. 

Note that all of the m68k platforms can now share the same binary for
most, if not all, packages.

There's also the question of what to do with a package like emacs,
which consists of ~3 MB of binaries and ~25 MB of machine-independent
data files.  Obviously it would be best to share one copy of the data
files among the various ports.

>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/*?

And as we have already seen, we're no closer to agreeing this time
than we were the last time.  I think we need either core, or a package
czar nominated by core, to make this decision.

>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?

This will vary from package to package.  If you're using prebuilt
binaries and the options are controlled by #ifdefs (e.g. kermit), then
you're stuck with whatever the package builder chose.  If options are
set by config files then the end user can set them up for him- or
herself.

I think defining a UI is pushing it in terms of benefit vs. cost.

>4) Satisfying all of these issues becomes a pain in the arse for the person 
>   who creates the package -> fewer packages are created.

It would help if pkg_create were a bit smarter about collecting files
to be included in the package.  Also, the package tools (whether pkg_*
or something new) need to be put into the tree.  I don't care whether
they end up in the main tree or othersrc, but they need to be included
somewhere.
-- 
Mike Long <mike.long@analog.com>     <URL:http://www.shore.net/~mikel>
VLSI Design Engineer         finger mikel@shore.net for PGP public key
Analog Devices, CPD Division          CCBF225E7D3F7ECB2C8F7ABB15D9BE7B
Norwood, MA 02062 USA       (eq (opinion 'ADI) (opinion 'mike)) -> nil