What a Long Strange Trip It's Been

by Brett Taylor <brett@daemonnews.org>

It seems like it's been a long summer for me that is now finally drawing to a close, especially with Daemon News. I was in Europe missing one month as Editor and then I missed last month after a run in with a Geo Metro on my bike (which turned in front of me and put me in the hospital briefly). I haven't had a chance to catch up on the email from those of you who took the time to respond to my last editorial, which was the second part of my Dumbing Down editorial.

This month I intended to spend some time following up those editorials by installing the beta version of Mac OS X and describing how Apple handled those issues. The CD however just got here after spending 5 days in an Illinois UPS warehouse. I also only have 64 MB of memory on my iBook while they recommend 128 MB for the beta. Sigh - I can't win!

Instead of either of those, I'd like to talk a little bit about what Chris' editorial was about. Last month Chris talked to you about the new Open Packages project. If you look at when the idea first appeared on Daily Daemon News, you can see that I was, well, not exactly supportive of the idea. It wasn't that I didn't think it wasn't a good idea - I think it's a fantastic idea. I just thought a number of things:

• that it would be impossible to merge the 3 different package/ports systems

• that this group would be working on the outside of the 3 ports/pkg teams and dividing an already stretched set of volunteers

• that Chris was taking an idealized view without understanding all of the subtleties that happen in the pkg/ports area

While I used to maintain a moderate number of ports (and have cut back on that list), I still follow the freebsd-ports list and know that there is much work there still going on as the ports team tries to decrease the number of inodes used among other things. I know a little bit about the OpenBSD and NetBSD pkg system and it seemed very uncertain to me that we could easily merge all the disparate work. It's not completely different, but you have to convince people that it's not only a good idea, but that it's doable.

A number of important things have occurred for me to believe that this project has a good chance for success.

• Chris has gathered the powers of the BSD ports and pkg systems as well as involving people from Apple and BSDi

• mailing lists have been started to organize the volunteers

• Sera has donated a computer to use as a CVS server

Contrary to my initial comments, work is already started and I'll be happy to announce to the world I was wrong about the project even getting started. I've always liked the ports/pkg system and it was one area my minimal programming knowledge would let me help out. In order to attone for my doubt, I'm going to try to help out on the project. I urge you to do the same, if for no other reason than to make sure I learn not to underestimate the BSD community.

Mea culpa Chris. :-)

A special thanks to the Daemon News Editors who helped cover for me last month and bought me a great new helmet. You guys are fantastic!

Thanks again to all of you who've sent me email - I'm sorry I haven't had the chance to respond to each of you. Now that I'm slowly catching up on work I should have time to respond (barring another car hitting me!). If you have comments, please feel free to email me.