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From: Marcin Wisnicki <mwisnicki+freebsd@gmail.com>
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Subject: [RFC] NO_INSTALL in meta-ports considered harmful
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Some metaports (like print/cups) use NO_INSTALL.

This will prevent such port from registering its installation in /var/db/
pkg, which is different behaviour from installing it from prebuilt 
package (where it registers just fine).

IMHO not registering installation makes no sense and serves only to 
confuse users (I've installed cups yet pkg_info claims I didn't!) and 
causes unnecessary differences between software installed from ports vs 
pkgs, which may lead to other unexpected problems (like missing 
RUN_DEPENDS).

Thus I advocate for more uniform handling of ports and packages by 
treating it as a bug and replacing any such use of NO_INSTALL with empty 
do-install target. Maybe even add a note to Porter's Handbook (though I 
see no reference to NO_INSTALL there).

If anyone has some insightfull comments why NO_INSTALL is not evil then 
I'm all ears.