Re: New bc

[Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost>]

Gavin Howard <gavin.d.howard%gmail.com@localhost> writes:

> Would there be interest in adding my bc as a port?

We call them packages (vs the FreeBSD term port; here port means cpu
typ), but that's not important.

Certainly, this sounds great to have as a package.

The best option if you want to do this yourself is to get access to
pkgsrc-wip and create it.

The next best option is for you to ensure that it builds ok on NetBSD, with any
luck with a normal ./configure interface and then adding it becomes easy.

A question would be about the package name.  You have chosen "bc", it
seems, which is the name of an existing package, both in pkgsrc and in
the world beyond.  So you might think of a name that we could use in
pkgsrc.  And even perhaps rename your distribution so the names line up.

> If so, would there also be interest in investigating whether my bc
> could replace the current default bc?

If you mean in the base system of NetBSD, that is an entirely separate
question, for tech-userlevel.  I would say that there has to be a pkgsrc
entry first before anyone is likely to want to start that discussion.
And perhaps a few years of maintenance and there is the question of a
1-person project (if it is, but it sounds that way from the URL).  I
don't mean to criticize your efforts - but adopting things into the base
system is a very hard decision and NetBSD exists over very long
timescales.

If you mean pkgsrc/math/bc, that's out of the question, as there is no
reason to withdraw that, even if we add pkgsrc/math/foobc, for some
spiffier value of foo.