On Fri, 21 Feb 2003 06:08:18 +1100, grant beattie <grant@netbsd.org>
wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 20, 2003 at 12:05:16PM -0600, Frederick Bruckman wrote:
> 
> > IMO, these things should go into the bootstrap kit for the OS. (So...
> > now we need a portable NetBSD curses?) Same thing for openssl. There's
> > no way we're going to be able to spot dependencies on things in our
> > base system, and the chief advantage to having such things in our base
> > system is that we don't then have to track dependencies.
> 
> Only tools that are *really* needed for bootstrapping should be
> included in the bootstrap kit.

I like Frederick's idea, if I may say so, probably because it's so simple
even I understand it:  If you want to use pkgsrc, make sure your system's
up to snuff.  You can do that by using NetBSD, or apt-get, or rpm, or our
friendly script, up to you.  Then pkgsrc Just Works, and its maintainers
don't have to deal with an infinitely variable base system.  

Why limit the bootstrap kit to the bare minimum?  How many things will
there be in NetBSD that are not provided in other base systems?  Not that
many.  The overhead of adding a few possibly unnecessary packages via the
bootstrap kit is small.  In for a dime, in for a dollar.  

--jkl