FreeBSD Ports vs. Gentoo Portage (a matter of concept)

[FreeBSD Prospect]

Am Dienstag, 7. Februar 2006 12:10 schrieb a non y mouse:

> FreeBSD Prospect wrote:
> > with having a stable OS & all the lastest add-on software installed. How
> > does this work out in the FreeBSD world?
>
> do you install every single piece of third party software onto your
> machine? no... of course not
> 3rd party software is just that--it has no relevance to the quality of
> the operating system on which it runs, so i fail to see how it could be
> taken into consideration when evaluating said operating system.
> you are given free will to install or not install any software you wish,
> and in any manner. if you want to compare the level of stability and
> security of an operating system vs. another, fine. but leave it at that.
> whether the ports tree existed or not, you would install certain pieces
> of software if you needed them. this, imo, makes any concept of
> "security" or "stability" in the ports tree completely immaterial

In general I am unsure, how a stable production environment is handled in 
FreeBSD due to the lack of dividing new ports in different states.

The approach with different qualification of a software state (stable / 
unstable at least) is a common way to go, as it is handled with the FreeBSD 
OS (release / stable / current). That's why I wanted to know, how everybody 
else is comming along with such a system missing for the ports collection.

What you write about 3rd party software is not exactly meeting the point, 
because you can't run a production environment with just the base system. 
Everybody relies on the additional software, and the whole system can only be 
considered that secure and stable, as it is as a whole. Therefor the add-on 
software has to be taken into consideration about the quality of an OS as 
well, especially because all that software is available using a central 
repository. Doesn't it make sense, to ensure the quality of add-on software, 
if the ports-tree is controlled by the FreeBSD project? Wether if it is in a 
way, like the Gentoo project is handling it, or the OpenBSD project, is a 
different question.

-- 
Sincerely,
Michael

A FreeBSD Prospect, who is actually using Gentoo Linux