On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 4:39 AM, David Taveras<[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello community,Thanks for all the hard work for the developers and testers
> out there, I have a confusion:
> W
> hy OBSD strongly advises to use packages over building an application from
> ports (according to FAQ 15.4.6) if :
>
> a.) Obsd does not maintain the stable packages since 4.0 (source:
> http://www.openbsd.org/pkg-stable.html)
> b.) The packages are only from -release because they are downloaded from
> ftp/cd and therefore do not contain reliability and security patches applied
> to applications build from ports stable? ( Source
> ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.5/packages/i386/ all packages last
> updated on 03/03/2009)
>
> If it is advised to use packages, then why follow the important security
> updates from the stable branch? Iam sure there are many highly used packages
> that have security fixes available (such as apache2) that I would need to
> compile from ports.
>
> It is annoying that everytime I ask a question about an application that I
> build from ports I get asked why I didnt use packages.. my answer is..
> because most of the time the package is outdated and can be vulnerable!
>
> What am I missing?
15.4.6 also says:
Of course, there are a few good reasons to use ports over packages in
some cases:
* Distribution rules prohibit OpenBSD from distributing a package.
* You wish to modify or debug the application or study its source code.
* You need a flavor of a port that is not built by the OpenBSD ports team.
* You wish to alter the directory layout (i.e. modifying PREFIX or
SYSCONFDIR).
Hope it answers your question.
-Amarendra
>
> Thanks
>
> Daniel
>
> 15.4.6 - What should I use: packages or ports? In general, you are *highly
> advised* to use packages over building an application from ports. The
> OpenBSD ports team considers packages to be the goal of their porting work,
> not the ports themselves.
