Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:55:10 -0500 From: Ade Lovett <ade@FreeBSD.org> To: Charlie Kester <corky1951@comcast.net>, FreeBSD Ports <freebsd-ports@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: saving a few ports from death Message-ID: <A9C17565-97D8-43F1-9CF7-8CFC79EFEA7B@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <20110426024122.GA38579@comcast.net> References: <ip53jn$92d$1@dough.gmane.org> <4DB6165F.1010806@FreeBSD.org> <20110426024122.GA38579@comcast.net>
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On Apr 25, 2011, at 21:41 , Charlie Kester wrote: > Maybe freshports could implement a voting system like the one at > osx.iusethis.com? "Voting" implies some kind of democracy. This may come as a shock to folks, but FreeBSD in general is in fact not = democratic. It's based around the concept of folks putting in their own = time to keep a part of the Project alive. Whether it's a device driver, some chunk of base userland, = ports/<foo>/<bar>, or support for an entire architecture and/or release = of FreeBSD -- doesn't matter. Without at least a modicum of active = maintainership (hint: MAINTAINER=3D ports@FreeBSD.org is _not_ active) = then it will eventually fall by the wayside and die. For ports, there's a non-zero cost associated with each and every single = one in the tree. Directly, in terms of clusters trying to build = packages for the combination of supported releases and architectures, = and indirectly, in case of infrastructural changes affecting chunks of = the tree, when it comes to determining whether port breakage is a result = of said changes, or whether it was broken already. Generally speaking, such "dead" ports are marked DEPRECATED with a = sizable amount of time before being reaped. Honestly, I'd personally = prefer the variable to be named PUT_UP_OR_SHUT_UP (but that's just me). = The fact remains though, that that is _exactly_ what it is. If, in the = period between a port being marked DEPRECATED and it being removed from = the tree, and especially in the case of UNMAINTANED=3DYES (that'd be = ports@FreeBSD.org for those in the back), no-one steps up to (a) fix the = problem, (b) take maintainership and (c) _continue_ with maintainership. Well, in that case, the port does not _deserve_ to live. After all, = no-one cares about it. If they did, they'd take care of (a) thru (c) = above. -aDe
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