On Wed, Oct 23, 2002 at 03:41:13PM -0700, Johnny C. Lam wrote:
> I'm not sure that's it's really unneeded complexity.  We sometimes need
> to differentiate between different releases of NetBSD in pkgsrc, and
> extending pkgsrc to differentiate between different operating systems is,
> I think, a small step.  While it's true that pkgsrc on Solaris, Linux, or
> MacOS X is not as well-tested as on NetBSD, I think that the number of
> users using pkgsrc on non-NetBSD OSes is growing, and it will eventually
> cause the quality of pkgsrc to grow.

Well I see commits with the message "make this work on solaris".  I
don't see how the quality will ever grow if you're just dirtying the
mk with extra defines for the various features of the different
operating systems.  I suppose it's nifty if you use it, which I don't,
so I'll shut up about it now.

Speaking of growing the quality of pkgsrc, I've been looking at the
mk frameworks that Free/Net/OpenBSD use for porting applications.  I
don't think anything could be learned from FreeBSD.  But I saw a couple
of things with OpenBSD that peaked my interest.  Specifically the
reversal of packages and the FLAVOR system.  In FreeBSD I had a huge
problem with inaccurate PLISTs (haven't had problems so far with NetBSD).
It seems that having all pkgs/ports installed from a package makes this
a non-issue.  The FLAVOR stuff is pretty nice so you don't have to
augment the Makefiles to suit your needs.  FreeBSD has something
resembling a FLAVOR system but it isn't as well done.

Is there be any interest in getting these features incorporated into
NetBSD?  I'd be more than happy to do it.

thanks,

- avon