why another PEAR channel? :)

Hello,

as far I see the feature server and pear channel having very close aim, but however the PEAR and it's channel server a bit more famous in php world(at least for me, because used it even before drupal) and have a some successful integration examples in others projects like Symfony or Magento I am curious is it were on radar when development of feature server began and why it's were not chosen?

I might be wrong, but would like to hear something back if it's so :)

Thank you!