NetBSD Packages Collection Gets 'pkgviews'

jschauma writes "NetBSD's Packages Collection aka pkgsrc now has support for an experimental new framework called ``pkgviews''. This framework, finally allowing multiple versions of one package to co-exist without conflicts (among other great features), was first proposed by Alistair Crooks at EuroBSDCon 2002 and has been integrated into pkgsrc by Johnny C. Lam, who just posted a User's guide to the tech-pkg MailingList."

Comments

FP

[Anonymous Coward]

pwnt

Re:Debian still sucks though.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fact: *BSD is dying

Lamenting the dead - What Killed FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

The End of FreeBSD

[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]

When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.

Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.

FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.

It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.

So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.

Discussion

I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.

From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.

There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.

Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.

Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?

Shouts

To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.

To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It

*BSD: IT'S DEADER THAN ANTI-SLASH.ORG!

[Anonymous Coward]

aND jUST aS gAY!!!!!!

I've used Pkgviews

[Anonymous Coward]

It is official; Netcraft now confirms: *BSD is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

Fact: *BSD is dying

*BSD is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

It is now official - Netcraft has confirmed: *BSD is dying

Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when recently IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

Fact: *BSD is dead

Elegy for *BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

Elegy For *BSD

I am a *BSD user
and I try hard to be brave.
That is a tall order
*BSD's foot is in the grave.

I tap at my toy keyboard
and whistle a happy tune
but keeping happy's so hard,
*BSD died so soon.

Each day I wake and softly sob
Nightfall finds me crying
Not only am I a zit faced slob
but *BSD is dying.

5 dead, 31 injured after bus smashes into truck

[Anonymous Coward]

BEIJING (AFP) - Four people and one shit operating system were killed and 31 injured when a long distance bus crashed into a parked lorry in a central section of China's north-south Beijing-Zhuhai expressway, state press reported Monday.

The accident occurred in foggy weather in Hunan province in the early hours of Monday when the bus smashed into the parked truck which had failed to pull over fully to the side of the road, Xinhua news agency said.

Police confirmed that *BSD is among the dead. *BSD is now nothing more than blue-flash roadmash, surrounded by stretchers, covered heads and slippery red macadam. Further details about the dead and injured were not available.

Police officials in Hunan are blaming the truck driver for the accident, citing his failure to pull his broken-down vehicle completely off the road, it said.

The coach was badly damaged in the wreck, while the lorry driver escaped without injury.

The coach had departed Sunday afternoon from Guangdong province's Dongguan city and was bound for Hubei province as part of China's annual Lunar New Year travel rush.

China's dangerous highways clock 15 percent of global auto deaths, although the nation has only two percent of the world's cars, according to Ministry of Public Safety figures.

NOSTRADAMUS PREDICTED THE DEMISE OF *BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

Although it has been obvious for some time (to anyone except the self deluded fanboys of *BSD) that *BSD, that sickly, torpid, sluggish OS, was in the process of its final decomposition, it is nevertheless surprising that the 16th century writer and seer Nostradamus could have accurately predicted its demise, before computers were even invented. Yet in my research I have found clear passages within Nostradamus' quatrains which indicate this to be the case.

In three linked quatrains, Nostradamus firstly predicts the beginning of *BSD

C3Q67
A new sect of Philosophers >>"Philosophers" - likely there was no 18th century french word to convey "fat ever-virgin homo hackers".
Despising death, gold, honors and riches >>free
Will not be bordering upon the German mountains: >>Not in Germany - ever clearer
To follow them they will have power and crowds. >>Electricity / Internet

Then its eventual demise at the hands of the very community that created it- its "bride"

C2Q98
The one whose face is splattered with the blood
of the victim nearly sacrificed: >>death from a thousand cuts - the hatred and pride which led to the death of the house of *BSD
Jupiter in Leon, omen through presage: >>"Leon" mistranslation of "Theo"?
To be put to death then for the bride. >>Death for *BSD

And the character and predilections of those hackers:

C5Q68
In the Danube and of the Rhine will come to drink
The great Camel, not repenting it: >>Holiday in Europe
Those of the Rhone to tremble, and much more so those of the Loire,
and near the Alps the Cock will ruin him. >>Homosexual activity

So in summary, these 3 quatrains predict the 1)Creation of "Free" software 2)"Electricity" - suggests computers 3) the death of *BSD 4)"Cock will ruin him" - loner homo hackers.

Now, no doubt I will be modded down, the slashdot community is well known for its protection of homosexuals and promotion of the homosexual lifestyle. But please - hear the message from history. Look at the evidence before you, and accept the inevitable. Your pathetic OS is already dead

Lessons from the grave

[Anonymous Coward]

What We Can Learn From BSD
By Chinese Karma Whore, Version 1.0

Almost everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry, and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.

Let's not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the 4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.

These early triumphs would soon be forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he documents on his website. Mr. de Raadt's stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.

As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD distribution make code sharing an arduous task. Research conducted at MIT found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.

Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.

The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality. Like an empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.

BSD Crowd Driven Away

[cozman69]

Aparently the BSD crows have been driven away from Slashdot by the constant trolls.

So were can I get BSD relevant news now ? I know there's deadly.org and bsdforums.org ... are there any sites that I'm missing ?

Re:BSD Crowd Driven Away

[Anonymous Coward]

Fact: *BSD is dying

Re:BSD Crowd Driven Away

[Anonymous Coward]

So where can I get BSD relevant news now ?

This resource is pretty good.

Re:BSD Crowd Driven Away

[Anonymous Coward]

It is now official - Slashdot has confirmed: The BSD section is dying

Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when recently I confirmed that relevant posts to the Slashdot BSD section account for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all posts.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

On Slashdot, a popular BSD News website, each BSD news story contains on average about 400 comments, of which, rounding up, 2 are of relevance to the subject. If 36,400 BSD users can generate 2 relevant posts, then it follows that there are 398 * 36,400 = 14,487,200 BSD trolls.

The trolling phenomenon is only a symptom, confronting BSD users with the reality that they fear. Before healing can begin there must be acceptance. That 14,487,200 people are so concerned highlights the obviousness of the truth. Yes, the majority of evidence tells us that *BSD is dead and with it dies the BSD section. It is only a matter of time before the BSD section is replaced by a vigorous, younger, and more popular subject, such as adapting Linux for computerised sewing machines.

With such little interest in a dead hobbyist's project, is it any wonder that the BSD section itself is slowly choking on its own stale vomit? Red ink flows like a river of blood, a river emanating from a knife shaped hole in the back of the fading Daemon mascot itself.

You don't need to be Nostradamous to see the inevitable end. As the clusterfuck that is the BSD section continues, potential users disappear into the ether, whereas existing users are literally torn apart by the back biting and politik of a thousand fragmenting incompatible kernels like shrapnel from a concussion grenade bursting out of a rotting pig's bladder.

Think of *BSD as a whale's corpse rotting on the bottom of the ocean, with the existing users the hagfish, tearing into the dank white flesh in a frenzy of self destruction. I would like to say *BSD has gone to a better place, but I doubt it. Tough words are necessary to get through

Remember, for every sunrise, there is a sunset.

Re:BSD Crowd Driven Away

[kivaapina]

Aparently the BSD crows have been driven away from Slashdot by the constant trolls.

I don't think so. Maybe it's just a quiet bunch ;). I always check BSD slashbox for important news.

Re:BSD Crowd Driven Away

[msw2]

Given the style and tone on here, is it surprising to anyone ?

BSD Remains in Vegetative State as End Nears

[Anonymous Coward]

Jan. 8 -- BSD resumed receiving life-sustaining care yesterday in a Florida hospital room, but many experts said there is virtually no hope that it will ever recover, despite it fan boy's desperate hopes.

"IF IT'S over a year, BSD's not ever going to get up," said Fred Plum, a professor emeritus at Weill Cornell College in New York. "You'd just don't see it. It just doesn't happen."

BSD, 39, has been in a persistent vegetative state since its heart stopped for unknown reasons in 1990. A feeding tube in BSD's stomach was removed this past Wednesday after its husband, Theo De Ratt, who said his wife had told him she (BSD) would not want to be kept alive under such circumstances, won a long series of court battles to have life-sustaining nourishment withdrawn so she (BSD) could die.

Lights out, pard

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhere, in a lonely hospital room,

*BSD is dying

Re:Lights out, pard

[Anonymous Coward]

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But like bad ghosts you hang around the graveyards

[Anonymous Coward]

BSD on Slashdot is dead. Period. The End.
Leave before the smell over powers you.

DEAD == BSD.

CFAA

[Anonymous Coward]

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Anatomy of a failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, we all know that *BSD is a failure, but why? Why did *BSD fail? Once you get past the fact that *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personas?

The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. All hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.

Stick a fork in it, guys

[britneys 9th husband]

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