Welcome to BePorts

BePorts is a centralized collection of software ported to the  BeOS platform. Each port contains the BeOS-specific patches to the original source code. Along with a Subversion repository to store all patches, this Trac site eases cooperation on porting efforts. There is also a mailing list for the discussion of the project. The BePorter? tool is provided to ease the fetching, patching and building of source code.

Objective

The main objective of the BePorts project is to centralize ports of software to the BeOS platform. This avoids reinvention of the wheel when the person that ported an older version of a software package didn't provide a patch and seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth.

More importantly, solutions to problems faced when porting one application may be valuable when porting another. For this purpose, the PortLog, Trac tickets and the CommonProblems page can be consulted when facing problems. To make this work, some Guidelines should be followed.

BePorter? can be compared to a slim version of  Gentoo Portage. It fetches the original source code, applies the BeOS-specific patches, builds, and optionally installs the port. This package management aspect, however, is by no means the essence of the BePorts project.

Platforms

Unfortunately there are a couple BeOS platforms: R5, BONE, Dano, Zeta and  Haiku. A BePort? should ideally build on all of these. While the older platforms are still of importance now, focus will eventually shift to Haiku as it matures.

Getting Started

To install the BePorts system on your BeOS installation, see Installation.

For information on how to add a BePort? to the tree, see AddingPorts. Don't forget to read the Guidelines.

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Information about Trac.