Re: The ports-system and userland in general.

[walt <wa1ter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Joerg Sonnenberger wrote:

> Sorry, but I completely disagree. I have used portage long enough and
> it doesn't compare to ports. It's flaky and the maintainership sucks
> at best.

The one-and-only reason I switched from debian to gentoo was the portage
system (inspired by the FreeBSD ports system) -- a decision I've never
regretted.  It's the only ports-like system for linux that I know of.

However, I still think that the FreeBSD ports system is light-years
better than the other BSD's, and seems to be equal to portage --
which is why I'm puzzled at the push to dump the ports system in
favor of something else.

Any system, no matter how many technical merits it has, depends more
than anything on the people who maintain the individual ports.  Clever
code in the ports system cannot replace the vast knowlege and dedication
of the ports maintainers.  The human capital already available to the
FreeBSD ports system is priceless and would be almost impossible to
replace.

If DFly becomes the de facto standard BSD system (which I truly believe
will happen in three to five years) it will attract enough talented ports
maintainers to support any ports system that DFly may elect to support.

Until that day comes, I vote for keeping the FreeBSD ports system.