pkg idea

[Jason Helfman]

Hello All,

Today I have removed misc/instant-server from the ports collection, however
this spawned an idea I have, however I do lack the coding to implement if
seen as a good idea :)

The direction for features, as I understand it, is to be able to request
something in a port.

USE_FEATURE= ws (webserver)

So the port would install apache, per se.

With this idea, why not provide metadata from the feature itself such as:

PROVIDES_FEATURE= ws

Then advertise the pkg tool the concept of installing features:

pkg install feature <{web,dns,application,proxy,irc}> server.

The user can then have a list of features to install. This can be presented
in multiple ways. Possibly a list, or maybe even a "signed off
on/officially supported" server features.

Web Server -> Apache
DB Server -> PostgreSQL
DNS -> Bind
Application -> Tomcat6

Or something different...

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
-jgh
--
Jason Helfman          | FreeBSD Committer
jgh at FreeBSD.org     | http://people.freebsd.org/~jgh  | The Power to Serve