MacPorts 1.5.0 and binary packaging / New improved Guide

[markd at macports.org]

Juan Manuel Palacios <jmpp at macports.org> on Monday, July 9, 2007 at 11:54
PM -0800 wrote:
>2) Even though still not complete, extensive work on the generation  
>of rpm's off MacPorts Portfiles has pushed forward our ability to  
>generate real binary packages, improving both the building of the rpm  
>tool itself on Mac OS X and the "rpm" MacPorts target (renamed from  
>"rpmpackage") that creates the corresponding rpm files/packages.  
>These packages still need to be generated by users off their own  
>MacPorts installations ("port rpm <port>"), and flawless  
>functionality for each of them is still not guaranteed,  
>unfortunately. For instance, one long standing shortcoming still with  
>us is that rpm installed software (even if the package is generated  
>through MacPorts) is separate from MacPorts installed software, they  
>are still two different universes that don't talk to each other even  
>if installed into the same /opt/local prefix. However, strong  
>developer momentum on the packaging front raises our hope that the  
>goal of providing fully working and ironed out binary packages will  
>be reached eventually!

I am progressing on the new Guide. I mispoke when I called the new Guide
"minimalist", because that implies stuff will be left out.  I only
intended to streamline and rewrite it (some explanations were verbose and
redundant) but leave no material out.  I just added all the sections that
I think need to be in it and I inserted the contents of "MacPorts
Internals" stuff from the old guide too.  Shouldn't be long now that all
the data will be mined from the old guide.  Not that the work is over
since improvments will still be needed, but at least we can look forward
to those rather than looking backwards and trying to capture what used to
be.

http://homepage.mac.com/duling/macports/guide.html

Comments still welcome on the Guide so far.  It needs some color css work
and other css formatting, but I'm focusing on content and readability.  I
don't feel competant to write Section 7, "Packaging Ports into Binaries". 
Can anyone who understands the packaging process throw some text at me on
this topic?  Doesn't have to be much or pretty, I can rewrite it but I
just something more or less technically accurate to start with.  Or point
me to a similar section in another package manager if that is possible. 
I'm just not that familiar with the whole topic and the manpage doesn't
say that much.

Mark