I'm not a port expert but I have an opinion... The problem is this: the port system exists to give you access to all this wonderful open source library. Apple likes open source tools but they have no commitment to interoperability or standards. So if you rely on their infrastructure, it may change slowly but it can break any time. I built a cross compiler toolchain to build linux powerpc binaries on my intel mac. There was a great cross compile tool chain builder for linux that did not work on Mac because of OS X inconsistencies with make and other standard tools. Ironically I was able to make the script work by over riding mac versions of these tools with port versions. I'll trade inconvenience for standards and control. There are people that come to ports just so they can have the "standard" version of a tool. David