Subject: Re: New category for revision control tools and programs
To: None <>
From: Greg Troxel <>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 07/14/2006 11:13:09
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

  I think we have enough packages in pkgsrc to warrant a new category
  for revision control programs and tools.

We had a lot of talk about the name of a new cagtegory, but no real
discussion on the wisdom of category changes, both in terms of a
cost-benefit analysis and in terms of what's wrong with pkgsrc and how
this relates.

Adding a new category means a bunch of cvs work.  It might help people
find things, but in general things belong in multiple categories and
browsing pkgsrc doesn't work very well.   So I don't see a huge

'make replace' operations can become safe, but that's mostly
way to convey such changes (devel/subversion =3D=3D> vc/subversion) to

So, I think time would be better spent making the update process more
safe and automatic -- since the current status is a turnoff to pkgsrc
and also NetBSD.  But, we're talking about wiz's effort, so I don't
get to decide.  There is also the amount of extra time that a category
change will cause many pkgsrc users to spend on updates.

I object to a new category, and believe that the test for adding new
categories should be more like

  "Is the lack of the proposed category a real problem that outweighs
  the added grief of updating with tools that don't understand package


  "Are there enough programs to justify a category"

        Greg Troxel <>

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