packaging system

[Richard Coleman]

I don't think anyone is suggesting to remove such capabilities.  Just 
give some structure (or at least style guidelines) to the method of 
creating these.  This is already happening (slowly) in FreeBSD. 
Portlint was just enhanced to complain if the port maintainer uses 
variables in the USE_* namespace.

Richard Coleman
richardcoleman at xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Jeremy Messenger wrote:
-- don't just encourage porters make up whatever knobs they like
(look at the USE_* WITH_* WITHOUT_* mess.)
<snip>

Why not? The best example is VIM, it has so many options what to build
with GUI such as GTK, GTK2, Motif and etc. I find the USE_*, WITH_* and
etc are very useful. Also, take the look at a lot of GTK2 apps, if you
don't want it to be build with GNOME options then don't install GNOME2 and
allow apps to be standalone.
Cheers,
Mezz