The install profile system is one of the key features for the next release of Drupal. This has been stated publicly for months. Dries said it was the number one thing he wanted added to Drupal in the state of Drupal talk in Vancouver.
Yep, and it still is. In my view, it is really important to get the installer -- and the install profiles -- into Drupal core. The sooner, the better. Ideally, Ber's command line tools would be able to re-use parts of the installer (shared API). If that's not possible with the proposed install system, we should massage it until it is possible. (We can do this after the current system hit core. Incremental improvements are fine.) The point? We should be working on _one_ install system that can do both, rather than having competing systems. So, Ber, please provide a detailed review in the patch queue, or provide actual patches that improve the proposed install system. -- Dries Buytaert :: http://www.buytaert.net/