Hubert Feyrer wrote:

> On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Andy Ruhl wrote:
>> possibly run pkgsrc which I honestly haven't tried on anything but
>> NetBSD.
> 
> pkgsrc runs fine on both solaris/x86 and solaris/sparc. I've used it
> myself to setup apache with php as apache-module, and gd as php-module.
> IIRC in the last bulk builds, several thousand binary pkgs were produced
> for solaris. See e.g.
> http://mail-index.netbsd.org/pkgsrc-bulk/2004/11/14/0001.html

I think it would be better to say that *conceptually* pkgsrc runs
on both solaris/x86 and solaris/sparc. Certain types of packages
build and run, but in my current/recent experience, only a small
number of the packages we would like to maintain under solaris
actually build under solaris8, solaris9 and solarisx86.

...
> When Solaris really comes out as open source, the pkgsrc crew needs to
> make enough noise to attract people to use pkgsrc on Solaris.

We run a sizeable solaris shop. Maintaining ancillary software
packages from source, such as pkgsrc attempts to do, is pretty much
non-existent for Solaris. Binary pkgs are available sometimes, but
IMO rarely are built the way we need them built and are typically
too far behind the version curve to be terribly useful when they
do exist. Maintaining a list of packages that we need to by hand
is simply impractical.

I think there is a tremendous 'market' potential for pkgsrc on
solaris right now, if we could get it working.

>> If Sun can latch onto this "all from one source" thing, and people
>> decide they like that, I see that as a benefit to *BSD. When they get
>> tired of Solaris or just decide that they want to hack code again,
>> then they have another alternative.

I think that until the non-commercial *BSD's can easily cooperate
with Solaris' authentication and backup tools, there will be very
limited movement to them. OTOH, since OS/X does so, it is being
used with great success as an alternative desktop here (and, of
course, yet another opportunity for pkgsrc).  Without this cooperation,
I think the other *BSD's will be used just by those who know what
they are and for some server applications.

pkgsrc could easily be the glue that binds a lot of issues together
and possibly attract enough attention to it to be useful. Pkgsrc
has already began to do so here and that's just with the expectation
of what pkgsrc could do.