openssl and other intersections of ports and base system

[Oleg Sharoiko]

Dear Sir/Madame.

For some time there do exist some applications in ports which can be build
either as a port or as a part of base systems. Among the most notable examples
are openssl and sendmail. Current ports collection has a serious problem
because there's no standard way of specifying that port depends on some part
of base system. For openssl there is USE_OPENSSL in bsd.port.mk, but
USE_OPENSSL seems to be unmaintained and broken as it completely ignores
openssl from ports. Due to this in case one needs openssl from ports he'll get
half of the ports broken because they rely on USE_OPENSSL. There is a
solution proposed by the maintainer of openssl port and open PR

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=ports/39054

I believe this problem should be resolved and I hope I'm contacting the rigth
person. And I'd say that there should be some reconedations on how to specify
dependency when it can be a port or part of base system.

-
Oleg Sharoiko.
Software and Network Engineer
Computer Center of Rostov State University.