Compatability with FreeBSD Ports [debian package tools]

[Joerg Sonnenberger]

On Wed, Aug 17, 2005 at 12:26:37AM +0100, Hiten Pandya wrote:
> Can we not just go with an established packaging suite like the one found 
> in Debian and modify it for our use?

Please, don't mix building packages with managing packages. Debian has
a lot of cool work done for the latter, but is completely inappropiate
for the former. I'd also like the stress again, that the bean counting
argument doesn't show anything about a system at all. Debian has
literally thousands of contributors, partly because the system is a
maintainance hell. I completely agree with Andreas on that.

If you want to invest time, think about how apt-get can either be ported
to pkg_add or write a similiar *frontend*. Think about which basic
functionality pkg_* misses (as in low level primitives), they can be
implemented independent of whether ports or pkgsrc is used. Most of the
implementation could be shared between both without problems.

Portage looks nice for the first time you use, until you hit a major
problem with it. It's not easier to write a port / package / ebuild
ruleset, but it adds a lot of requirements for the few things it
provides. I wouldn't think that Python as requirement for a build system
(and even worse for a package system) is a very good idea.

Joerg