/opt/local/macports/software

[Chris Jones]

> It is also correct that all other package systems you're familiar with
> never have to build locally from source.

True, but I don't agree it completely negates the argument.

> Possibly if you can get away with always operating in binary mode then
> we could re-download missing archives from packages.macports.org
> <http://packages.macports.org>, If you can't (and there are lots of
> reasons why things might not be be prebuilt for you) then you really
> want those archives.

That is a choice a user might wish to make for themselves... If they 
have limited disk space then even for packages without binary archives a 
user might prefer to accept the CPU cost of re-building from source, if 
they ever need to, to keeping the archive on disk just in case...

Chris