(I guess that this subject have been discussed again and again
anywhere in the world...)

> So I figure I'll install it on my trusty 1.4.2/i386 at home.  I looked
> at the web pages and not all the dependent packages - my there's a
> lot, and copy them down.  pkg_add vomits because it needs to install
> say foo-1.0.3 but foo-1.0.2 (can't recall exactly what foo was) is
> already installed.  What's the point of including versions if you can
> only ever have one installed?

If 'foo-1.0.2' and 'foo-1.0.3' are _perfectly_ compatible, it may be
possible that a dependency check of a binary package will be more
tolerant. If 'foo-1.0.2' and 'foo-1.0.3' are _not perfectly_
compatible, a disaster will occur.

If "pkgsrc" tries to be responsible to binary compatibility, it seems
better not to permit 'foo-1.0.2', which may be not binary-compatible.

Just easy thoughts, but I can think of what should be done for
"pkgsrc" to make binary packages more tolerant (and convinient for
users) are:

  - verify compatibilities of binary packages _throughly_
  - if a package has any dependency, make it depend against a package
    which is the lowest version in compatible packages
  - rewrite all 'pkg_*' tools... *duck*

Masao

---
Masao Uebayashi <uebayasi@soum.co.jp>