New FreeBSD package system (a.k.a. Daemon Package System (dps))

[Jordan K. Hubbard]

On May 10, 2007, at 8:20 PM, Garrett Cooper wrote:

> Yipes. The name of the game is to get something working in the base  
> system, instead of dragging in multiple 3rd party packages, with  
> licensing schemes that may not be aligned with the BSD license.
>
> SQL's great, SQL's wonderful for db use, but the problem is that  
> supporting it from my POV would cause a lot more grief and waiting  
> than having me wait a few months to get a BDB compatible scheme out  
> the door.

One of the issues here, however, is the fact that BDB is basically  
just a key/value database (and all the really robust versions from  
Sleepycat have licensing problems of their own).  SQLite has an  
extremely liberal license and quite a bit of power besides (and Apple  
has contributed a considerable number of robustness-increasing fixes  
to it given that it's our embedded database of choice for quite a few  
applications).   I wouldn't get too hung up on the database part of  
this in any case - packaging systems are difficult to create due to  
the fact that they're so broad, not because they're deep.  There are a  
huge number of issues to resolve regarding upgrades, dependency  
tracking (which mutates somewhat in each of the install/delete/upgrade  
scenarios) and package creation and husbandry in general.

- Jordan