Panther tickets

[Anders F Björklund]

Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:

> We've had this debate before, and it always seems to boil down to  
> "Hey, let's rip the non-MacOSX stuff out.  We're MacPorts, not  
> *Ports!"  "No no, I had some Linux support working last year, even  
> though it hasn't been maintained at all and only 10 ports actually  
> work with it!" and then everyone tries to placate the person who  
> put in that well-intentioned, but ultimately doomed (to rot)  
> support by simply dropping the subject until the next time it comes  
> up.

It would be easier if MacPorts did say right out what it was, and  
then any and all non-Mac stuff could indeed be forked off to a  
separate LinuxPorts branch instead. Would be easier to follow than  
this "we might be portable and maybe we can run elsewhere" policy.

The understanding so far was "that it can stay unless it gets in the  
way".

So if it does get in the way, then drop them at the same time as  
Panther ?

> The fact remains pretty clear that the Linux folks and all the  
> *BSDs have their own systems for managing software, and no more  
> than a tiny fraction of their user base will ever use ours (the  
> Gentoo BSD folks come to mind as another good example of that  
> principle in action).  Without users in any quantity, there is very  
> little attention actually paid to the code in question and without  
> attention, it becomes little more than the personal hobby of the  
> few people who actually use that Linux/BSD/Solaris support code and  
> MacPorts becomes an amalgam of common-good code and personal, pet  
> projects.  Not my idea of a good time.

I thought the idea was to have one system that could run on several,  
but since package management is one of the major brandings besides  
colors and mascots - it probably will never happen. It's even so  
"great" that GNU has a few and BSD has a few and Mac has a few.

So it's easier to make wrappers, and let each have their own  
implementation.

A single system could still be useful, but maybe MacPorts is not that  
system.

--anders