Why doesn't macports install prebuild packages? / give Linux another try

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Dec 1, 2009, at 15:45, Vlado Plaga wrote:

> Still it is a lot easier to just update a few Portfiles, compared to
> building and testing so many different binaries (and providing a
> server infrastructure so people can actually download these),

Well, it should be architected so that the process is still the same for port maintainers: all they should have to do is update their portfile, and the build server would automatically kick off builds for each supported system, package it up, and make it available for download. That's the system we want that hasn't been built yet.

> obviously... and why should anyone do all this work for free for a
> non-free operating system?

For the same reason any of us do any work at all on MacPorts. Because it benefits ourselves and our community and we enjoy doing it.