Re possibility of ports that install pre-built apps (allowed for free distribution)

[Sergey Fedorov]

In fact, we even have ports which only install pre-built app when the
source are freely available:
https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/blob/master/audio/xld/Portfile

Someone, explain me please, what makes OnyX different?

On 11/23/22, Sergey Fedorov <vital.had at gmail.com> wrote:
> My initial thought was the same: it is convenient to manage software via
> Macports, at least developer and admin software.
>
> Regarding an update mechanism, it is a valid question, but perhaps a
> solution can be found?
>
> For OnyX, this issue is relevant only for the latest OS. As you can see,
> anything less than Ventura is not developed anymore so won’t get updates:
> https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html
>
> On Wed, Nov 23, 2022 at 2:38 PM Nils Breunese <nils at breun.nl> wrote:
>
>> I personally like to install software via my package manager (MacPorts)
>> as
>> much as I can. This makes bootstrapping a new machine easy, as well as
>> keeping everything up to date. Therefore in principle I’d like all
>> software
>> I need to be installable via my package manager. It just makes admin life
>> easier, and I’d like to avoid having to use multiple package managers to
>> maintain the software on my Mac.
>>
>> However, on https://www.macports.org/ MacPorts doesn’t present itself as
>> a generic package manager, but as “an easy to use system for compiling,
>> installing, and upgrading either command-line, X11 or Aqua based
>> open-source software on the Mac operating system”. So, maybe MacPorts
>> isn’t
>> a generic package manager that lets me manage any software on my Mac. But
>> in practice MacPorts has deviated from this description. There are ports
>> that install prebuilt binaries, and I believe some people even use it on
>> non-Mac machines.
>>
>> By the way, you do get into a weird situation when an app has its own
>> update mechanism, because then how is a package manager going to stay in
>> control? I think this might be an issue with OnyX? For this reason most
>> GUI
>> apps I use — even when they’re open source, like Firefox — are not
>> managed
>> via MacPorts on my machine.
>>
>> Nils.
>>
>> Op 23 nov. 2022 om 04:50 heeft Sergey Fedorov <vital.had at gmail.com> het
>> volgende geschreven:
>>
>> 
>> Hi everyone, I have recently made a port that installs OnyX for every
>> system from Tiger onwards:
>> https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/16710
>>
>> Turned out, there is some ambiguity regarding such kind of ports. I don’t
>> particularly get why such ports cannot be allowed, provided building from
>> source is not an option and provided developers allow distributing freely
>> (which is the case for OnyX, see:
>> https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/index.html).
>> As a matter of fact, MacPorts *does have* ports that install pre-built
>> binaries, either as a variant or as the only option.
>>
>> It is perhaps indeed unneeded to have gazillions of ports of such a kind;
>> however, as for OnyX goes, it is a useful and widely used app, supporting
>> every version of macOS. How does it hurt to have it?
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Sergey Fedorov
>> GitHub: @barracuda156
>>
>>
>