pkgsrc-2014Q1
=============
The pkgsrc team is proud to announce the availability of the
pkgsrc-2014Q1 branch.  We would like to emphasize the newly added
support for OpenServer, as well as python-3.3 being a first-class
citizen.
 
Number of Packages
==================
In pkgsrc, there are:
 
14255 packages for NetBSD-current/x86_64
13841 binary packages built with clang for NetBSD-current/x86_64
12093 binary packages built with gcc for Joyent's SmartOS/i386
12046 binary packages built with gcc for Joyent's SmartOS/x86_64
11445 binary packages built with gcc for FreeBSD 9/x86_64
11233 binary packages built with clang for FreeBSD 10/x86_64
 
222 packages have been added this quarter
33 packages removed
1 packages downgraded
1681 packages updated
 
Pkgsrc Release Schedule
=======================
The pkgsrc developers make a new release every three months.  We
believe that this is a sweet spot between too many updates, and
keeping abreast of issues like security vulnerabilities.  Pkgsrc is
not tied to any one operating system or architecture, which gives us
the ability to decouple the releases from any operating system
releases, and to concentrate on the packages themselves.
 
This will be the 42nd quarterly release of pkgsrc.
 
Package Additions
=================
git-svn was added to pkgsrc, along with many python and perl modules,
some new converters, and ruby 2.1.1.
 
Package Removals
================
We actively manage the packages in pkgsrc, and delete ones that are
not necessary.  We said goodbye to cvsup, SmartEiffel, ezm3, snobol,
and some mbone packages.
 
Pkgsrc-security
===============
One neat feature of pkgsrc is its ability to sort package versions
based on the version numbers.  It's used in audit-packages, to report
on any installed packages which may have security vulnerabilities in
them.  pkgsrc-security%pkgsrc.org@localhost maintains lists of
vulnerable packages, along with reference URLs relating to the
exposure.  We thank OBATA Akio, Daniel Horecki, Guillaume Lasmayous,
and Tim Zingelman for their hard work.  Sample output from
audit-packages is shown below:
 
% audit-packages
Package sudo-1.7.10p7 has a local-security-bypass vulnerability, see http://www.sudo.ws/sudo/alerts/env_add.html
%
 
Getting pkgsrc
==============
More information can be found in
        http://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/getting.html
 
tar files for pkgsrc, along with checksums, can be found at
        http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/pkgsrc-2014Q1/
 
and anonymous cvs can be used:
        cvs -z3 -q -d anoncvs@anoncvs.NetBSD.org:/cvsroot checkout -r pkgsrc-2014Q1 -P pkgsrc
 
or by pulling from the git mirrors at:
	https://github.com/jsonn/pkgsrc
	https://github.com/joyent/pkgsrc
 
About pkgsrc
============
pkgsrc is a cross-platform packaging system.  It allows people to
download sources and to build and install binary packages on one or
more platforms.
 
Building packages from source is useful for a number of reasons:
 
+ not only is the provenance of source code checked (by using multiple
checksums), with pkgsrc, the version of source code you are working
with is the same that other developers and users have.
 
+ patches are maintained in a central repository, and, again, are
checked at patch application time by using digests. The patches
which are applied to the sources being built are the same ones which
are known to be used and proved by other pkgsrc users (not necessarily
on the same platform).
 
+ by building from source, all doubts about compilers, build practices,
source code cleanliness, and packaging differences are removed. 
Digital signatures of binary packages, while useful in themselves,
only prove certain aspects of binary package provenance. (pkgsrc has
had signed packages since 2001.)
 
+ it may be difficult or impossible to find a pre-built package for
the operating system or architecture.
 
+ a pre-built package may have further or conflicting pre-requisites,
which are themselves difficult to find or build. By building everything,
including pre-requisites, a from-source packaging system can ensure
that pre-requisites are present and integrated.
 
At the present time, pkgsrc supports 22 platforms:
 
        AIX
        BSDOS
        Cygwin
        Darwin/Mac OS X
        DragonFly
        FreeBSD
        FreeMiNT
        GNU/kFreeBSD
        HPUX
        Haiku
        IRIX
        Interix/SFU/SUA
        Linux
        Minix3
        MirBSD
        NetBSD
        OSF1
        OpenBSD
        QNX
        SCO OpenServer
        Solaris/illumos
        UnixWare
 
Complete dependency and pre-requisite package information is held and
used by the package management software - if packages rely on other
packages to function properly, that pre-requisite will be built,
installed and managed as part of the package installation process. 
Binary packages can be managed using pkgin.
 
Alistair Crooks
On behalf of the pkgsrc developers
Thu Apr  3 21:50:17 PDT 2014