Well, evgen already provided evidence better than I ever could. My general take would be: The most advanced binary package manager in existence is apt-get. T

Well, evgen already provided evidence better than I ever could. My general take would be: The most advanced binary package manager in existence is apt-get. The most advanced build dependency manager is portage. Both have evolved over many years (apt celebrated 10th birthday just recently) and are at the core of their respective distros. MacPorts and fink, on the other hand, are afterthoughts, somewhat akin to strapon-dildos. Fink at least builds on proven technology, MacPorts reinvents the wheel altogether. Neither has performed convincingly for me over the longer term. I was regularly confronted with outdated packages, broken builds or other screwage as soon as I left the beaten path of the few most popular packages. The package situation may have improved recently (my expirience is from 6 months ago) but the parallel universe, second userland issues are inherent. It's just not possible to match the real thing™ by piggybacking a package-manager on top of a system that wasn't designed for it. Even when the package manager is as good as apt.