Remove BIND, Sendmail, Perl and etc from base?

[ibotty]

> I like the ability to do
>     cd /usr/ports/../whatever ; make ; make install

is this entirely different, than to do a 
`emerge [../]whatever`
or a 
`apt-get install whatever`
i think not, its just a different method, to do the same (at least something
similar)

>>i'd vote for another system, one that is more current than
>>makefiles. i don't say these strange python/shell/whatever
>>structs of portage are the way to go, ...
> 
> What is portage?

portage is the packaging system of gentoo.
it is an advanced system, which makes it very easy to write a new port
(maybe ~ as *bsd ports), but has some debian alike features.
[1] may give you some food ;)
it is way faster than portupgrade, but is easier to use imho.

btw: i like portage, actually this is the only drawback i see, while using
freebsd atm. so i fail to see the strangeness in python/shell/whatever
structs in portage.

>>pure shell scripts do the job very well too. (portage's
>>ebuilds are nothing but bash scripts). use default shell
>>functions etc and you're done VERY cheap. and shell is
>>always there[tm].

portage needs python to handle dependencies and like...
so you will need python, if you use portage :(

and ebuilds w/o dependencies, etc are not very decent anymore.

> I do not think that standard bourne shells are the best
> way to implement this.  I've thought that the best tactic
> is to take some version of ruby (my preference), strip it
> down to a minimal version, rename it something different,
> and use that for these kinds of things.
> 
> (I mention ruby partially because I enjoy writing in ruby,
> and partially because portupgrade is written in it...).
> 
> The biggest problem with having perl in the base system,
> and calling it perl, is that these system functions are
> in constant conflict with running the latest-and-greatest
> version of perl.  I think we can have a high-level scripting
> language in the base system, as long as we do not use the
> "real name" for it.  Users would still have to install the
> real language from ports.

i like this approach.
but removing perl from base is also a reduction of installed size.
this should be considered too.
and having perl_from_base and perl installed at the same time, will double
the size required for perl.

despite of this, i think having good high level languages in base will speed
up developing user software, which is a good thing (tm).

btw: what about simply renaming perl to perl5.6 (or perl5.8, when we
upgrade). when no other (ports installed) version is installed, perl could
point to perl5.6.

refs:
[1] http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/portage-user.xml

~ibotty