What is _really_ needed is to take on FreeBSD's 'ports' mechanism
	(I wish to hell they'd picked a different name.. but...)

	Where you can cd into a directory (which contains the patches for
	a given program and where to get the source) and type 'make'.
	If the source is not locally present it will ftp it back, then
	apply the patches, then build.

	Given the multi-arch nature of NetBSD this is _so_ much better
	suited than binary packages.

	With the exception of the name - is there any reason why NetBSD
	hasn't picked up on this?

                   David/abs             (david@mono.org)

+44 181 888 8949 System Manager, Southern Studios Ltd, Box 59, London N22 1AR
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On Wed, 6 Mar 1996 is@Beverly.Rhein.DE wrote:

> Thor Lancelot Simon (tls@NetBSD.ORG) wrote:
>
> : I'm trying to get a feel for how many people are actually using NTP with
> : NetBSD; now that there's NTP support in the kernel, it would seem to me at
> : least that if a significant fraction of NetBSD users are using NTP, it might be
> : beneficial to include it in the source tree, but I need some data to back up
> : this assertion.
> :
> : Do you use xntpd on your NetBSD machines?
>
> yes
> :
> : All of them?  Most or many of them?
>
> part of them. hm... most of them. I have it on all Sparc/SunOS machines
> at work, and was just too lazy to install it on the, still somehow
> experimentally operated, netBSD machine there.
>
> : On a very large network where it would be a significant 'win' if you didn't
> : have to roll xntpd into each new 'standard' distribution that you run on all of
> : your machines?
>
> yes, definitely.
>
> : Would you find it useful is xntpd were included in NetBSD even if the version
> : sometimes lagged slightly behind the version distributed separately?
>
> Hm... depends. On the other hand, I'm used to reinstalling sendmail
> every other week to keep up with security patches, so I could do that
> with xntpd too, if need arises.
>
> : Do you consider NTP timekeeping a piece of 'core' OS functionality like BIND,
> : which could be unbundled but oughtn't be?
>
> errr... not really. What should be around, is some form of package, so
> that it is easy to get it in.
>
> Regards,
> 	i.s.
>