Compatability with FreeBSD Ports [debian package tools]

[Joerg Sonnenberger]

On Thu, Aug 18, 2005 at 01:39:05AM +0200, Raphael Marmier wrote:
> While strictly copying MacOSX is not an option, our dream package 
> management system should allow us to install an application and all its 
> dependencies in its own directory, possibly with its own config space. 
> This would be called "standalone" application, maybe.

This is what you can do already with pkgsrc or (perhaps to a slightly
lesser degree) with ports. Just build the "standalone" application and
its dependencies with a LOCALBASE of /opt/myapp and make a tarball of
the whole thing.

The reason why this is not used by default for normal system
distribution is the high amount of redundancy and that not every
dependency just works out of the box. As soon as a library needs a
config file itself, you have to break the sandbox and you loose most
advantages in that case.

In summary, this concept works best for distributing "shrinkware" like
Office programs, but is not such a good concept as general package
system.

Joerg