Universal and binary builds

[Bradley Giesbrecht]

On Mar 23, 2009, at 8:25 PM, Joshua Root wrote:

> Bradley Giesbrecht wrote:
>>
>> On Mar 23, 2009, at 3:50 PM, Anders F Björklund wrote:
>> [...]
>>> We could also resume building RPMS, if someone wants to spend
>>> some time on that. The build script could probably produce both
>>> archives and packages in the same run, from the same destroot.
>>
>>
>> RPM may be appealing to many for various reasons and I won't argue  
>> that.
>>
>> Apple has created the package format for distributing binaries and  
>> it is
>> familiar to most users and does not require any additional software  
>> be
>> installed.
>>
>> If macports binaries were packaged in osx package format wouldn't  
>> that
>> be more native and there by more attractive then rpms?
>
> The package format is practically irrelevant for use within MacPorts
> since all the necessary info should be stored in the registry.
>
> For distributing to users who don't have MP installed, .pkg is nice
> until you want to uninstall...

Are uninstall options within a pkg difficult?

Many installer distributed in dmg's provide an uninstall script.

I guess I just don't see the appeal of rpm. What do you see as the  
advantages of rpm?
Would rpm be internal to the macports port command and leverage rpm  
dependency checking or something?

I'm thinking of all the software I have downloaded in the past like  
php, mysql, gimp, foo2zjs, foomatic-rip, gutenprint etc... that are  
already distributed via dmg's.

It seems like it would be nice to have macports a popular place to  
build and distribute such things.

//Brad