Here are some packages I want to see.

  • Boost (broken into individual pieces, not a mega-package)
  • crypto
  • libtommath
  • gmp (although non GPL projects have a hard time using it)
  • pcre
  • icu
  • curl
  • zlib
  • openssl
  • protobuf
  • sqlite
  • breakpad

More generically, things like this

  • command-line processing
  • unit test frameworks
  • every crypto algorithm
  • database interfaces
  • low-level network stacks besides just Boost.ASIO
  • web frameworks
  • graphics libraries
  • embedded languages: lua, python, etc

Also, a decent fraction of the Standard C++ library might be better off as packages, at least in the proposed drastically expanded version that includes game and UI libraries. Specifically, Boost should be available as packages, not as a machine-level installable thing.

I also expect there to be platform-specific packages. But that would be fairly rare, instead we’d have packages that had inside them platform-specific bits, but the user doesn’t care as long as it works. E.g. networking frameworks need to be built on top of platform-specific bits.

Reference