Dislike the way port conflicts are handled now

[Kirk Strauser]

Until recently, it seems like port dependencies were handled at 
installation time. Lately, they're handled any time I try to do anything 
with a port. I absolutely detest the new behavior. Example cases:

OLD WAY:

$ cd /usr/ports/something/foo22
$ make
$ pkg_delete foo21-2.1
$ make install

NEW WAY

$ cd /usr/ports/something/foo22
$ make
===>  foo22 conflicts with installed package(s): foo21-2.1
$ make fetch
===>  foo22 conflicts with installed package(s): foo21-2.1
$ curse --type=copious
$ pkg_delete foo21-2.1
$ make install

This isn't just a hypothetical pain in the butt. An example was being 
unable to build databases/mysql51-client because 
mysql-client-5.0.something was installed. I understand not being able to 
*install* it, but to be prevented from *building* it? In most 
circumstances, I want to be able to delete the old package and install 
the new one with minimal downtime. As another example, can you imagine 
not being able to even run "make fetch" on something huge like 
OpenOffice until you uninstalled the old version?

In the mean time, I've been editing the port's Makefile to remove the 
CONFLICTS line long enough to finish building. That's not very helpful 
for those ports that don't actually build until you run "make install", 
but at least I can get the distfile download out of the way.
-- 

Kirk Strauser