> > I su'd to root in my home directory, typed pkg_add to install a large
> > pkg...it ran out of space in /tmp, said it was "cleaning up".  Next
> > thing I know, it removed the entire contents of my home directory.
> 
> This makes me damn glad I've never gone near the package tools.

I'm sorry that this whole thing happened, and I'm sorry that you
feel that way.  I've been trying to clean up some of the code we
inherited, and have done some of the modifications that I want. Others
are planned. It's no excuse, but, now that we have a working packages
collection, I'm quite sad to find such ... entrenched views.

You see, not everyone has your abilities, can code like you do, or can
take 3rd party software and make it work on the NetBSD platform of
choice. The packages collection is obviously not meant for someone like
you. No-one is ramming it down your neck.

> Software that tries to do everything for me is far too prone to getting
> it wrong.  (Most such failures are not quite this spectacular, but that
> has nothing to do with the principle.)  This is why I loathe SGI's inst
> and similar systems...
> 
> ...and why, when the package system was being discussed, I argued that
> packages should not need the package tools to unpack them.

So you've "never gone near the package tools", yet you're quite
qualified to argue about them? Packages do *NOT* need package tools to
unpack them. Frankly, I couldn't really care about what you loathe,
dislike, want, need, or like. It's quite immaterial, because you've
"never gone near the package tools".

Please either start contributing, or stay quiet.

Thanks,
Alistair

PS. It actually pains me quite a bit to write what I have above. I used
your X server for my NeXT for quite a few years, so I know that you're
quite a capable guy, and very far from clueless.