RE: assimilating OpenBSD
Jeremy C. Reed writes:
> > First of all, this *BSD ports base is entirely unnecessary.
>
> This makes sense -- especially because the dpkg/apt system is what really
> makes Debian.
>
> > What's needed is a `base' debian-bsd system. The basic (/bin,
> > /sbin) *BSD binaries is what is needed to be packaged the Debian
> > way.
>
> I agree that the base system (to be Debian) should be packaged the
^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Debian-way.
^^^^^^^^^^
I don't exactly understand your point. Have you ever actually
created a debian package?
>
> But many of the BSD /bin and /sbin binaries are not truly compatible with
> GNU equivalents. So does this mean forcing the Debian packages and Debian
^^^^^^^
> routines (like dpkg pre-installation scripts) to use the BSD tools
> instead?
Again, I don't exactly understand your point. I will give you a
hypothetical example, involving the packaging of the BSD
`fileutils', by this I mean a package that consists of BSD
versions of ls, mv, rm, mkdir, ln, etc, and provides similar
functionality to the GNU fileutils package.
This package would be a drop-in replacement for the GNU fileutils
package. It is the user's choice to choose which version, GNU or
BSD, or both, that she wants installed.
Now let's assume that these BSD fileutils require pmake in order
to build. So, in my debian/rules file, I invoke `pmake...'.
Naturally, this BSD fileutils package has a build-depends on
pmake. Now let's also assume that the `pmake...' rule eventually
invokes a recursive make from its Makefile, and that its Makefile
rule looks like this,
make...
instead of the correct way, like this,
$(MAKE)
so I have to fix the upstream Makefile. This is normal, and is
the expected kind of work that a debian package maintainer does.
>
> Or should the BSD tools be changed? (But then it wouldn't be the
> "audited" BSD tools anymore.)
I am personally interested in using FreeBSD as the base, so I have
no particular interest in the OpenBSD `audited' tools.
--
Jeff Sheinberg <jeffsh@erols.com>
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