On Mon, 23 Oct 2000, Simon Burge wrote:

: >From the original list of core, ext, dev, sample, man and doc, we should
: at least add "conf" for config files.  If we do this, I think it would
: be a good idea to add a standard set of subpackage names to pkglint so
: that the list of choices is somewhat under control.  An option to list
: the subpackages would be good too.

Additionally, all packages should be able to define custom subpackages for
other purposes.

One perk of this method, that I proposed a long time ago in different words,
is that we could gain the ability to upgrade packages in-place without
needing to upgrade dependencies recursively, or do nasty force-updates.

The most common dependency between packages are the shared
libraries.  Provided that shlib major numbers are properly used, subpackages
could mark which parts of a package are needed for "runtime
dependencies" that would not conflict with other versions of the same
package with different library majors.

You may note that *no* packaging system currently provides this kind of
clean in-place updating, and this proposal could put pkgsrc in a very unique
and useful position.

-- 
-- Todd Vierling <tv@wasabisystems.com>  *  http://www.wasabisystems.com/
-- Speed, stability, security, and support.  Wasabi NetBSD:  Run with it.