As seen with the poll for the must-have features for R1, the lack of proper package management is clearly one of the items that are delaying the release of R1. More importantly though, as package management is an actual lacking feature (as opposed to a bug in an existing implementation), even the beta cycle is being blocked as a result. In order to progress, Haiku needs package management. Despite some brain storming, an initial implementation of a PackageFSand the specification of its package format, little else has been done and much remains.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.haiku-os.org/news/2010-12-27_haiku_inc_accepts_contract_relating_package_management/