SLOTs (Re: Package system)

[ibotty <me@xxxxxxxxxx>]

considering ongoing "new sysinstall" discussion, i split this into smaller
chunks ;)

now to gentoo's slot mechanism:

> To better support number two and tree, adding a slot mechanism like
> Gentoo's portage has is worth a discussion. For those not familiar with
> portage: A slot is an addition to the version number allowing multiple
> packages of the same name with different slot version to coexist
> peacefully. I.e. autoconf has version 2.13 providing slot 2.13, version
> 2.53 providing slot 2.53 and version 2.54 providing the same slot. It is
> know possible to have both version 2.13 and 2.53 installed, but not
> version 2.53 and 2.54. If asked to update version 2.53 can be updated to
> version 2.54 and leaves 2.13 intact.

back in the days, when I was using gentoo, i found slots very useful.
I still like them... but! when you track an unstable portage branch, those
slots are not always enough. Sometimes, you end up with package A, that
needs B in slot 1 (-> B[1]), but is incompatible with B Version 1.1, which
is also in slot 1.

But this is the price of following -current ;)
And I think, slots are still worth including in our ideas.

~ibotty