On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 07:09:37AM +0200, Niels Kobsch??tzki wrote: > Hi, > > I wanted to install tarsnap today but in the packages I could only find > tarsnap-gui (and in the packages for 6.2-beta tarsnapper). The > installation fails because they cannot find tarsnap.
Licensing decides whether an application can be packaged for distribution. The Ports build subsystem uses licensing variables to determine if packages can be distributed. The Tarsnap port's Makefile contains the following comments and licensing permission settings: ---- # May not be modified and may only be used with tarsnap.com # see http://www.tarsnap.com/legal.html PERMIT_PACKAGE_CDROM= restrictive licence PERMIT_PACKAGE_FTP= restrictive licence PERMIT_DISTFILES_FTP= restrictive licence ---- > In the ports though there is tarsnap and after installing that even > tarsnap-gui installs for example. Yes, because tarsnap-gui uses a BSD license. ---- # BSD PERMIT_PACKAGE_CDROM = Yes ---- > 2) Why are there packages that depend on ports? Most tarsnap-gui users would prefer to install from a binary package, as tarsnap-gui is a complex application, with 165 build dependencies. As noted in the FAQ, the purpose of Ports is to build packages, as that is what we install. But sometimes, distribution of a package is not possible due to restrictions put in place by the application authors.
