[BBLISA] Desktop policies and UNIX-ish operating systems

[Edward Ned Harvey]

> >> > OSX has no concept of package selection or
> >> > package management,
> >>
> >> Apple takes a pretty spare course here.  You want [an app]?
> Download and
> >> install it (and the app is responsible for checking for its own
> >> updates).  You don't want it?  Delete it.
> >
> > Precisely as I said.  No package management.  I think this is un-
> unix-like.
> > Every unix-like system I've used in the last 10 years has at least
> some
> > basic (and standard on that platform) package management tools.
> 
> I believe .mpkg files are a sort of osx package management. But no one
> uses them, since App bundles generally feel cleaner. But anyhow, I
> sorta
> object to the implication that solaris has reasonable package
> management.

I had solaris in mind when I said "at least some basic" package management.
The pkgadd etc utilities built-in to solaris & opensolaris are pretty ...
weak ... but that's more than OSX has.  Also, you can safely assume pkgadd
is present in every solaris installation, it's totally standard for the
platform.  There are no package selection choices during solaris OS
installation that are irreversible except by reinstallation ... And pkgadd
gives you a ridiculously easy way to install opencsw pkg-add, and blastwave
pkgutil, if you happen to desire a 3rd party package management system.

By comparison with OSX, the process to install macports is laborious, and
user-specific.  Fink, as a 3rd party system, is comparable to the
functionality of blastwave and/or opencsw for 3rd party packages.

The whole point of what I said, was that it's un-unix-like to have
absolutely nothing available in the OS for package management.  It was all
lighthearted at the time, and I'm surprised how this thread has blown up.