Re: pkgsrc quarterly vs. current?

["Thomas Mueller" <mueller6724%bellsouth.net@localhost>]

from "Francisco Valladolid" <ficovh%gmail.com@localhost>:
 
> NetBSD offer freedom to you, and pkgsrc also.
> pkgsrc-quarterly offer a stable tree with a binary packages available
> for inmediately use, without compile individually.
> pkgsrc-current change daily, is more dynamic and maybe, some packages
> contains bugs or are broken, use under your own responsability.

> Te reason is the development cycle, all software project as one and
> pkgsrc is not the exception.

A user is under his/her own responsibility whether using a stable or nonstable 
version.  Notice those non-warranty disclaimers?

With pkgsrc, I believe stability would depend on the application in question 
rather than pkgsrc version, current or quarterly.

I was thinking, one reason for pkgsrc quarterly version might be to make CDs 
for sale by companies that sell open-source software CDs and DVDs: useful for 
users without broadband Internet.  Downloading all files needed to install 
NetBSD, or other BSD or Linux, at 56 Kbps dialup, and then downloading enough 
applications for a useful system, either source or already compiled, would be 
prohibitively slow.

There are other source-based package-management systems besides pkgsrc, such as 
FreeBSD ports and Gentoo Linux portage.  While FreeBSD ports tree has only the 
current version, one can download extra FreeBSD CD images or the DVD image and 
get prebuilt packages with each FreeBSD release, which might be roughly 
compared to NetBSD pkgsrc quarterly.  I tried that with FreeBSD 6.2, and KDE, 
Konqueror, and GNOME didn't work right; there was no konqueror, and no startx 
either.  Or maybe the messup came from upgrading FreeBSD to 7.0.  

With many Linux distributions, binary-based, packages are installed with the 
whole OS, and, except for security updates, only updated with each new release 
of the distribution.  Some users might feel fettered that way.

What happens if one tries to build a package from pkgsrc quarterly that has 
subsequently been upgraded so that the distfile would no longer match?  Or does 
pkgsrc quarterly keep all distfiles on the NetBSD and mirror servers?  FreeBSD 
ports collection does not include distfiles, which must be fetched whenever a 
package is built.
 
Tom