[csw-users] Source code changes/Compilation procedures

[William Schaub]

I am quite a fan of blastwave so far. however there is one thing it 
seems to lack and I wonder if i could get an answer to this one question.

Is there a way to get a diff of the source code for each package showing 
what was changed to make the package compile? perhaps something like a 
simple diff file + the maintainers notes on successfully building a project?

this is something I have very much missed with stuff like FreeBSD ports 
etc. because even though I like using binary packages and blastwave is 
of course a binary package distribution, some times I might want to 
build one of the blastwave packages from source with perhaps different 
compile time options, or even just to put it into its own place in /opt 
and have it separate from blastwave all together.  But As I am sure you 
all know many open source packages are not that easy to build under 
Solaris and it would be so nice to be able to benefit from the work that 
the CSW maintainers have already done in getting those few packages 
built under Solaris. It would also be very helpful to the authors of the 
Open Source software since they can see the patches necessary for making 
their code work under Solaris. 

It would be nice if there were a few files distributed with the package 
itself possibly under
/opt/CSW/share/doc/pkgname/

1. A file describing the source versions used to build the package and 
any special procedures needed to make the project build.

2. a diff file suitable to be used with the GNU patch program to apply 
any modifications the package maintainer needed to do to the source to 
make the blastwave package.

A similar approach was used in a binary package distribution for IRIX 
called nekoware. which is still active. check out their packaging guide 
at: http://forums.nekochan.net/viewtopic.php?t=3872
the part where it discusses compilation notes and a patch file is in the 
packaging section.  I believe if this were done with Blastwave it would 
only serve to improve an already great service to the Solaris community.