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Date:      Tue, 12 Aug 2014 17:22:46 -0400
From:      Adam Weinberger <adamw@adamw.org>
To:        marino@freebsd.org
Cc:        svn-ports-head@freebsd.org, ports-committers@freebsd.org, Cy Schubert <cy@FreeBSD.org>, svn-ports-all@freebsd.org, Bryan Drewery <bdrewery@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   Re: svn commit: r364739 - in head: . sysutils sysutils/syslog-ng-devel sysutils/syslog-ng-devel/files
Message-ID:  <88E432AA-8DC7-4C8A-B530-C75AF32952AF@adamw.org>
In-Reply-To: <53EA7416.5080008@marino.st>
References:  <53ea6d76.6eb9.5599e7c9@svn.freebsd.org> <53EA6EBB.2010802@marino.st> <53EA7155.4060606@FreeBSD.org> <53EA7416.5080008@marino.st>

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On 12 Aug, 2014, at 16:07, John Marino <freebsd.contact@marino.st> =
wrote:

> 1) They become a burden on everyone, even if they have a maintainer.
> Sweeping changes have to be applied twice.

This is a very real issue and you are 100% correct. Oftentimes -stable =
has fixes that -devel doesn=92t (or vice-versa). Perhaps requesting that =
-devel ports be maintained by whomever maintains the -stable port would =
help this?

> 2) What if every port had a -devel version?   Now we are taking 45k+
> ports.

What if every port came with a can of beans? Now we are talking 45k+ =
cans of beans.

> 3) -devel versions are poor quality often

And sometimes the last release was a billion years ago and -devel is the =
only real option. We need to be able to provide the =
last-officially-sanctioned release, but we also need to be able to =
provide the living versions. mplayer and squirrelmail come to mind, and =
mutt was the same for many years.

> 4) -devel versions are often neglected and are often older than the
> stable version

This ties in with (1), I think, and is quite correct. Requiring that the =
same person maintain both would help, and we should consider a policy =
whereby -devel ports are marked IGNORE=3D as soon as the -stable port is =
newer. Right now you have to manually inspect both versions to figure =
out which one is actually newer.

Hell, you have to do that anyway. postfix, postfix-current, postfix28, =
postfix 29, postfix210. Is postfix the current stable (yes)? What about =
squid, squid32, squid33. Is squid the current stable (no)?

> To me, they are more trouble than they are worth especially when the
> ports are reset.  I think there should be a pretty high bar for devel
> ports, and maintainer need to justify why they want to convert the
> FreeBSD community into a testers for third party software (which is =
the
> reason I've heard).

I disagree. Many people are happy running bleeding-edge stuff. Many =
people PREFER running bleeding-edge stuff. I bet that we have users who =
prefer FreeBSD over *BSD because they can always get the latest and =
greatest. The vast selection of different options is one of the greatest =
features of our ports system. Don=92t discount the worth of something =
just because it doesn=92t matter to you.

# Adam


--=20
Adam Weinberger
adamw@adamw.org
http://www.adamw.org




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