Why doesn't macports install prebuild packages?

[Joshua Root]

On 2009-11-30 20:28, Jasper Frumau wrote:
> Well, but who has the authority to choose the packaging format?

Whoever does the work, really.

> And how
> many base developers does Mac Ports have at its disposal at the moment?

Hard question to answer meaningfully (beyond "not a lot"), but as a
rough metric, here are the commit counts to trunk/base in the last year:

jmr at macports.org	259
toby at macports.org	145
raimue at macports.org	121
blb at macports.org	79
perry at macports.org	40
ryandesign at macports.org	34
afb at macports.org	20
snc at macports.org	13
jmpp at macports.org	7
wsiegrist at apple.com	6
gwhitney at macports.org	5
anddam at macports.org	4
pguyot at kallisys.net	3
nox at macports.org	3
jeremyhu at macports.org	3
jberry at macports.org	3
dluke at macports.org	2
simon at macports.org	1
mww at macports.org	1
mcalhoun at macports.org	1
jkh at apple.com		1
eridius at macports.org	1
and.damore at macports.org	1
alakazam at macports.org	1

> These would be my next questions to keep this discussion going and
> hopefully to get this repository project of the ground..

I should note at this point that there are a lot of bits and pieces of
the functionality already around. See for example:

<http://trac.macports.org/wiki/MPAB>
<http://github.com/febeling/portmill>

Note also that the images-and-archives branch created to work on
<http://trac.macports.org/ticket/19458> is probably where you would want
to be working if you were to add code to download archives.

- Josh