The point of such a tool is to make step 2 as simple as possible, not to eliminate step 1, and it doesn’t make a mod any more appealing or interesting if you have to spend lots of time trying to get it to work properly. User reads about the mod, learns what it does, who made it, what configuration options are available etc.
I would see the mod installation process as being along the lines of: The purpose of Portmod is not to provide a way of installing a big list of mods in one step, but rather to share the changes necessary to get mods working properly with everyone, allowing everyone’s experience with the mods to be improved. While I understand the concern, my perspective is that automated tools are more about providing better tools for installation and configuration, not for cutting out the mod authors. I’m actually a little surprised to hear that modders are against such an automated tool, both because I haven’t heard that before, and because I don’t think that the sentiment is entirely justified. It’s still in development, but is nearing a stable state. On the lines of similar existing projects, Portmod, a project that I’ve been working on, is an existing automated tool that uses an extremely detailed mod metadata repository to automatically configure and install mods.
