DPS Initial Ideas

[Sean Bryant]

Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
> Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org> writes:
>   
>> You may want to look at some other Linux distros. The packages system
>> dates to about the same era as rpm/debs. The package system is much,
>> much more manageable than them. On the other hand, most Linux distros
>> have moved beyond those tools, to things like yum, apt-get and
>> up2date. Those incorporate the facilities that rpm and debs are
>> missing in a higher-level tool, and I think they are slightly more
>> manageable than freebsd packages.
>>
>> As far as I know, none of them handle updates from source at all. In
>> fact, dealing with sources seems to be a noticable weakness for them.
>>     
>
> apt-get --build source <package-name>
>
> DES
>   
I'm just going to interject here, I apologize if this is out of place. 
I've been following the threads on SQLite in the base for ports and the 
DPS initial ideas threads.

Kris has stated it would be wise to actually list out the problems with 
the current ports / packaging systems and I fully agree. As right now 
its a bunch of back and forth bickering with no real solution in sight 
because those proposing solutions don't have a full understanding what 
it takes to change the systems, and those who do are really reluctant to 
adopt such changes due to their limited focus and maybe even the 
developers experience.

I propose someone post on the wiki (http://wiki.freebsd.org/) the 
current issues with the ports and packaging systems so that everyone can 
get a better understanding of the problems that need to be solved. This 
could possibly help the SoC student improve the system by giving him a 
clearer picture of what's wrong. This could also help lead a more 
unified initiative to improve the systems and prevent adding new issues 
to the system.

Prototyping a solution when the problems are known is much easier than 
stabbing at the problem in the dark.