Re: source-based package management

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   >    Has anyone considered also offerin a source-based solution,
   >    like the popular Ports system in BSD distributions, or in
   >    Gentoo GNU/Linux's emerge program?
   > 
   > Is there anything wrong with `./configure && make install'?

   No automatic dependency management? Also, not all software is built
   like this.

Sure, but not all software is packaged either.  Anything that is
useful should be packaged.  But I really fail to see the point of
`source based installers'.  What purpose does it serve?  Who will use
it?

If one just needs a automatic way to compile a couple hundred
packages, then GSC does that job, and is easily tweakable.

But for all other purposes, I really cannot see what is so bad with
`./configure && make install'.  If you are a developer, you will want
alot of control over what happens, and a `source based installer' will
not help you there.

Cheers.