> I think someone was expressing a desire to have a ports-like mechanism for
> obtaining direct binaries, for which architecture is obviously an issue (at

Not at all:

% cd /usr/ports
% make packages ARCH=i386
% make clean
% make packages ARCH=sparc
...
% cd /usr/ports/packages
% ls
i386 sparc
% cd sparc
% ls
cad             games           misc            russian         All
comms           graphics        net             security        INDEX
databases       japanese        news            shells          archivers
devel           lang            plan9           sysutils        audio
editors         mail            print           www             benchmarks
emulators       math            printing        x11

It would be trivial to make allowances for an ARCH indirection in the
package creation process, and I think the OpenBSD folks have already
done so, in fact.  Any interested parties might, in fact, wish to go
take a look their ports tree - the CVS repo is up for public access.

> > Since I mentioned audio, I should also note that we fully expect to be
> > running the OSS/Lite sound system in another 6 months or so anyway (if
> > not sooner - I'm being deliberately overconservative here), ...
> 
> Would its design allow NetBSD/Sun and NetBSD/Sparc ports to maintain
> compatibility with the Sun audio interfaces?  SCO is not the only commercial
> UNIX, after all.

For those platforms, you might wish to stick with what you've got
already, at least in the medium-term.  I do know that OSS has managed
to strike up a deal with HP for providing their audio hardware library
API there, somehow, and have said that Sun is a high priority.  If
they can get Sun to sign on then the whole Open Sound System thing
will probably be the next API for everyone, Solaris folk included.

I'm not saying they'll succeed, necessarily, but they do certainly
appear to be the only ones even *trying* very hard and, as such,
should get our support.

http://www.4front-tech.com/oss.html for more info.

					Jordan