[9fans] plan9 packages

["Steve Simon" <steve@quintile.net>]

Hi,

Can I suggest that when ken's fs is split from the main
plan9 tree it is not tar'ed up but it is just copied to a source
tree which contains only the kenfs stuff but in their correct places
in a plan9 hierarchy, and a replica proto generated for it.

The idea is that the new owner(s) of the kenfs tree could be given
write permission to the code and then those who want to continue
to use it could get the latest changes by doing somthing like:

	bind -a /n/sources/plan9/replica /n/sources/extra/kenfs/replica
	replica/pull kenfs

We would lose nothing as the last "supported" release of kenfs will
allways be available in sourcesdump.

I would be willing to try to do the same work with some of the other
tars in the contrib area (x11, tex etc)

I do understand the danger that we might end up with somthing like the debian
package managment stuff However it would be great to have an easy way to grab
an arbitary package and keep it up to date. I recently fixed a silly bug in
cvsfs but it doesn't really seem worthwhile emailing the whole list.

It would also be great if the packages had some sport of Author file so
people could submit patches against them and the relevant person/people would
get the patch email.

What do people think, neat idea or the thin end of the wedge?

-Steve