Re: Building native packages with pkgsrc (was: Re: pkgsrc-based Linux distribution)

["Johnny C. Lam" <jlam%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 06:59:21PM -0400, Mikhail T. wrote:
> Picking up on the conversation archived here:
> 
>    https://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-pkg/2013/04/10/msg011065.html
> 
> Aleksey Cheusov wrote:
> > we [pkgsrc] should provide yum repository for RHEL, zypper repos for
> > SLES, apt repositories for Debian derivatives etc.
> I agree with the above rather strongly -- pkgsrc should not be "all or
> nothing". It offers a far superior way to /build/ packages on most OSes, but
> there is no justification for it replacing the native package-managers.

Supporting additional package formats is currently being worked on,
but with no timetable for completion at present.  However, the
statement that "there is no justification" for using our own binary
package format and tools is overly dramatic.  There are most
definitely _reasonable_ justifications for it; three reasons come to
mind rather quickly:

* Not every binary package format has features that map cleanly onto
  other package formats.

* Not every package manager interprets or compares version strings
  in the same way.

* Not every system follows the same file and directory layout.

There are more, but just solving these three is a non-trivial task,
and each additional package format we try to support would need to
be actively tested and maintained to avoid bitrot.

-- 
Johnny C. Lam
jlam%NetBSD.org@localhost