No subject

(which I had implicitly assumed anyway) would be a great step forward.
The Solaris pkg would then be "icing on the cake".

> Once that's done, then it should be easier to create packages for any of
> the popular package management systems (by causing the installer to put
> everything under a previously-empty subdirectory).

Agreed: something like
   gmake install DESTDIR=temp-build-dir
   cd temp-build-dir
   <build Solaris package (or debian or ...)>

I have successfully use this for a completely different project (which had
also included the additional (and to us irrelevant) tricky issue of shared
libraries).

> In the end I would expect that rpm, solaris pkg, *bsd pkg, and debs at least
> would be worth having.

Certainly.

> > 2. If the idea meets with Julian's approval, and if there are several
> >    other sites which would positively wish for Solaris/pkg, then I might
> >    be able to volunteer to take an initial look at it (although it would
> >    have to be at low priority...).
>
> Once a generic installer is done, it should be much easier to create
> platform-specific packages; I'd encourage anyone who's considering trying
> to make packages for any particular platform to mail me and offer to help
> with the generic installation system, so that we can: a) get it done, and
> b) make sure that it really does make it easier to create their particular
> type of packages.

Given this encourage from you (and from Julian in a separate message) I'm
trying to knock up a small automake+autoconf scheme at the moment...

--

:  David Lee                                I.T. Service          :
:  Systems Programmer                       Computer Centre       :
:                                           University of Durham  :
:  http://www.dur.ac.uk/t.d.lee/            South Road            :
:                                           Durham                :
:  Phone: +44 191 374 2882                  U.K.                  :