> I don't see what's wrong with the existing package installer... Granted,
> it's not in the tree which it probably should be... I haven't read the
> 1.1 docs but I imagine it says in there somewhere that there are packages
> available and where they're located...

Well, i don't think there's much written about packages in "official" NetBSD
documentations. Last summer(?) John Kohl was elected to handle packages, and he
accumulated some on ftp.netbsd.org in /pub/NetBSD/packages. The software there
uses the FreeBSD pkg_tools if i remember right.

Then there's a whole lot of stuff for NetBSD/amiga (and prolly some other
m68k-platforms) in /pub/NetBSD-Amiga on ftp.uni-regensburg.de. That stuff again
doesn't use pkg_tool-format but rather some shell-scripts calles EasyInstall
(don't wanna go into the discussion which one of the two's better - i wrote the
latter one. Get contrib/EazyInstall-1.4.tar.gz from the above dir for more
information :-).


> a) BETSI certificates, while probably a good idea, provided that little
> bit of extra non-incentive because it was "yet another thing to have to
> figure out" on my already growing list of "things to figure out one day".

For what it matters, i don't but any such stuff on the packages here. I try to
test everything that gets uploaded, and that's about it.


> b) Most stuff builds right out of the box anyway.

Sure, but that's no argument for Joe Dumbuser, who just wants to run some apps.
He wants some ready-to-run packages.


> d) not everyone agrees on where a package needs to be installed. In fact,
> I remember the discussion and not everyone agreed on the structure of
> "/usr/local" itself not to mention the group of people who didn't believe
> in having a "/usr/local".

Oh yeah, i remember when i once mentioned /opt in that context... foo! :-)


Hubert

-- 
=============== Hubert Feyrer ============================================
      Weekdays: Rennerstr. 19, D-93053 Regensburg, Tel. 0941/943-2905
      Weekends: Bachstr. 40,   D-84066 Mallersdorf, Tel. 08772/6084
      Internet: hubert.feyrer@rz.uni-regensburg.de, IRC: hubertf
==========================================================================