[TriLUG] OT: hardware question & OpenBSD

[Chris Hedemark]

> Who doesn't want package management?

Theo DeRaadt for starters.

> That is to say, who doesn't want
> some of the drudgery of handling ever-complex software installs handled
> by the machines, especially if it can be done in a safe, reversible way?

There is a package manager in OpenBSD but it has none of the benefits you
mention.

They won't use apt or rpm because of the licensing issues, which I can
respect.

As fast as they put together pf, though, I'd have to think that they could
build a BSD package manager in no time at all.

It would be especially nice if it worked with the ports tree so you could
download the source, compile it, install the compiled binaries as a package,
and then back those binaries out when you want to uninstall.  But be mindful
of any dependencies you might break in the process.  This is sort of how I
handle RPM's... I usually download the src.rpm and build a binary RPM for my
target architecture and install it.

> Or would they claim that that such a package management program cannot
> be made, or more importantly, can't be made securely?

I think it is just something that they aren't interested in.  I'm not a C
guru otherwise I'd write the thing myself and release it under a compatible
license.  In the meantime I'm going to play with rpm under OpenBSD and see
if I can get it to work.  :-)