port "cask" -- installing prebuilt binaries

[Lothar Haeger]

> Am 04.08.2020 um 19:52 schrieb Ruben Di Battista <rubendibattista at gmail.com>:
> 
> So my take here is to not provide pre-built binaries packages if not strictly unavoidable, like for the osxfuse project (since it was open source before). 

I think we all agree that building from source is preferred, so nothing should change for OSS ports. There is no reason to fear anything you get from MP now would no longer be available in the future. OSS would still be built from source.

I could imagine to implement a binary re-distribution scheme as a well-known variant e.g. "+prebuilt", so that it became possible for a single port to support both build/distribution schemes. That way dependencies could simply reference the port as usual, while each user could choose the variant she prefers. It would not even be necessary to decide on one exclusive scheme for each port, but have both options in parallel, wherever that might make sense. One could then also set "+prebuild" (or "-prebuilt") in variants.conf, so if a prebuilt binary is available, it would be used, if not everything would work as it does now.

> One of the reasons I chose Macports for is the fact it builds its own tree from source and it ships basically open source only software. 

Not sure why "ships basically only open source" would be a reason to prefer MacPorts over HomeBrew, as long as either of them provided what you want (OSS) in the way you want it (build from source). Even if MacPorts also provided closed source stuff it would still be your choice to install or not install it. I see no reason how providing more binary-only ports in a more formalized way would make MacPorts a lesser choice.

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