New FreeBSD package system (a.k.a. Daemon Package System (dps))

[Tim Kientzle]

David Naylor volunteered:
>Since the installation system is being tackled under a SoC project I am 
>hoping to give the packaging system a go.

Wonderful!  Be careful about one point:  The packaging system
as a whole is a big system; much bigger than many people
believe.  A lot of people (including myself) have set out
to rebuild the package system.  Few of us have gotten very
far.  (For example, I built libarchive in order to rework
pkg_add.  But changing pkg_add's install logic required
rethinking dependency handling, which turned out to be a
lot more complex than I thought.)

A good place to start is with the existing tools.  Search
the bug reports, work up fixes to some of them and submit
those fixes as follow-ups.  Start conservatively; don't
break compatibility with existing tools until you understand
the system more completely.

In particular, expect a lot of skepticism about major
format changes until you have some actual numbers to
back you up.  A lot of people on this mailing list have
looked into performance issues with the package system;
the real problems may not be where you think they are.

>I have searched the FreeBSD mailing lists and have found little 
>information on the package system.

The people who maintain the current codebase are right on
this mailing list.  Ask away!  What do you want to know?

Tim Kientzle