Pkg-based base system.

[Richard Coleman]

David O'Brien wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 17, 2004 at 06:25:28PM +0100, Miguel Mendez wrote:
> 
>>On Wed, 2004-03-17 at 12:09, David O'Brien wrote:
>>
>>>3. Sounds like you want Linux with its RPM's, not BSD.  We consciously
>>>   don't wrap the base system in pkg_add tarballs.  We generally LIKE the
>>>   entire system being a single integrated blob.
>>
>>Yes and no. Perl was removed from base, wasn't it? Anyone needing perl
>>can install install it from ports (read: it's one of the first ports
>>most people install). Why can't the same be applied to bind and
>>sendmail?
> 
> 
> Bind and Sendmail are traditional BSD components.  The 'B' in "BIND" is
> "Berkeley".  Perl was never part of traditional BSD.  Being present in
> traditional BSD is one of the justficiations for having something in the
> base system.  If you don't want BSD, there are alternatives.

I understand what you are saying, but "tradition" is not a very good 
technical argument.  I suspect -current differs from BSD-lite in many 
fundamental ways.

But I don't think anyone is advocating Linux-style granularity of 
packages.  Most people just want a little finer granularity to handle 
bind, sendmail, dhcp, and maybe openssh.  A large motivation for this is 
to simplify the process when an update is necessary due to security 
problems.  For a large shop, it's much nicer to update 1000 ports, 
rather than do 1000 build/install world, mergemaster cycles.

The fact that certain bikesheds come up frequently is an indication that 
many people are interested in it.

Richard Coleman
richardcoleman at mindspring.com