PEAR Package Requirements and binarycloud

hi guys, I think we'd like to use the PEAR package system for binarycloud. Certainly for compatibility and "resource sharing" it seems like the best path. However, I do not have a sophisticated understanding of the installer, and I wonder if anyone would be willing to respond to this message with a fairly detailed explanation of the workings and requirements of the PEAR installer + package xml. Specifically: -Package dependencies -Build and preprocessing -Remote installs -Required files "in" a package (like package.xml, others?) This is for my benefit, as well as the binarycloud-dev list's benefit. If the pear package system fits what we're doing (as I hope it does) we'll do what's necessary immediately to turn binarycloud into a PEAR package hierarchy that's installable. Then Phing (our build system) can take care of configuring and building those packages. Thanks, _alex