Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2016 09:23:09 +0100 From: Baptiste Daroussin <bapt@FreeBSD.org> To: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org> Cc: ports@freebsd.org, marino@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Removing documentation (was: [Bug 206922] Handbook: Chapter 4.5+ changes) Message-ID: <20160209082309.GD1141@ivaldir.etoilebsd.net> In-Reply-To: <20160207000304.GA71035@eureka.lemis.com> References: <bug-206922-273-PXN38rlW5F@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/> <bug-206922-273-YnY5vf8jP1@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/> <bug-206922-273-kkQfWZPv1w@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/> <20160207000304.GA71035@eureka.lemis.com>
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--llIrKcgUOe3dCx0c Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Sun, Feb 07, 2016 at 11:03:04AM +1100, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > I'm bringing this to the attention of the ports community to try to > come up with a consensus about how to handle existing documentation > for ageing packages, in this case portmaster. >=20 > This bug report suggests removing the documentation for portmaster > because it is out of date and no longer maintained. >=20 > But it's still in the ports tree, and people still use it. The > current wording (4.5.3.1) claims it is the recommended tool, which is > clearly out of date. marino@ (the submitter) writes: >=20 > On Friday, 5 February 2016 at 7:33:33 +0000, bugzilla-noreply@freebsd.o= rg wrote: > > > > You have a tool presented as "official" that hasn't had it's > > original maintainer in 4 years and was only kept on life support up > > until 9 months ago. >=20 > Agreed, the "official" (the term used is "recommended") status is > gone. But that's a reason to fix the documentation, not remove it. > As I see it, we have three choices, in increasing order of > desirability: >=20 > 1. Remove all mention of portmaster. That's what this PR recommends. > 2. Do nothing. > 3. Update the documentation to indicate the current status, > recommending alternatives if possible. >=20 > The real issue here is that we shouldn't remove documentation for > software that is still available. In addition, wblock@ writes: >=20 > On Friday, 5 February 2016 at 14:48:07 +0000, bugzilla-noreply@freebsd.o= rg wrote: > > > > At present, portmaster still has no direct competition... >=20 > More generally, the way I see it is simple: we should try to keep the > documentation as up-to-date as possible. This means that we don't > remove documentation for existing packages. It also means that we may > need to change the content of the documentation if the status (not > necessarily the content) of the package changes. >=20 > One of the arguments for removing it from the handbook is that it has > a man page. That has some merit, but it doesn't help the people who > have used portmaster and now don't know what to do. Even if portmgr > is deprecated, the documentation should suggest a replacement. >=20 > Can portmgr@ come up with a clear, easy-to-understand policy? >=20 In my opinion there is no reason to remove the mention of portmaster in the handbook as long as it is not "official" and "recommended" but just listed = as a possible tools. There are plenty of documentation on the handbook to explain how to use $th= ird party tools. portmaster has some design flaws and clearly synth has a way better and saf= er one. But that does not mean portmaster is ready to go away as there are ple= nty of users using it still and for some cases, no alternative is available. For instance, as far as I know synth is not available on non i386/amd64 architectures which is imho the major issue for being a candidate for a replacement of portmaster. As much as I don't like the way portmaster (and portupgrade) are designed: = aka unsafe building, there are still IMHO no alternative by the fact that an alternative should cover all our supported architectures. For i386/amd64 us= ers yes synth is a viable alternative and a way safer one. Also note that synth= is still very young and before pushing anything that would kill others, it wou= ld be good to be more patient and and see how the tool behave/is adopted/is maint= ained over the time. Regarding portmaster, I think it would be time to deprecate it and remove it =66rom the ports tree/documentation the day when it prevents us from adding= an important feature into the ports tree, which may or may not happen soon. Out of my mind such features could be: - subpackages - flavours/variant Note that the above would require changes in all the port management tools.= Also note that as far as I know noone is working on the first (subpackages) and someone picked up the work on flavours/variants based on where I stopped bu= t I don't think it will land in the ports tree any time soon. (also note I'm not working on those feature anymore for now, because of ENOTIME :() BTW: just a clarification on the dependency front: - at runtime synth depends on only 1 port: ncurses - at bulidtime it depends on 2 ports: ada (gcc-aux)/ncurses (gcc-aux itself= my drag other build dependency. Best regards, Bapt --llIrKcgUOe3dCx0c Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJWuaHtAAoJEGOJi9zxtz5aKnkQAOCuzlgquosQ7LB+BZcczpG0 UdTm1/BxXJxgBq/CDRu3Zp3e6RKnH+zyY4ILMsGXxNYEnYTVyWeMucL56nkr0ZBQ HAt1TavI40+3+KPKlnGDh3zgucW7dZkQJ3Tp6e+pNYSXXVpkSaqD9t7U+1oHylA8 2VpTfMoPfAcDDycQJi1nPe/sgB0SYHll+gRmvBKoZEcjVGMRM9B3Rcg1AlQnTHDX Ve6egjBmG4EQdLwoZBhNObW4d3T0W7Ye9/hW9wittuid0zYmjrZIpCt0AMd06lq0 WS8610FbsZNDn41HJ925CmsRzmZbMAcBeCQaE9V03lx3l99t3nd+/vXd0BRSkdeq QH+jHMFrGTNO3wmgK7aDH8yXh6fexVgkLigf1RB1TTKPQ2+DkfCLYeID0ivJTNlh T6QURkeGuGF4LwRCK4QqgX/oot7vHHc3F5ADcKP1o9O+UwVBTFZfrB2lo+y5zdGf zHPNpmc2hhdZV4ApgjZcLo6P6b5rRfajwFjSw3wdpDfy705MrF+I7plvT9RO9P7+ jAXQ8ZKQd3cGrpPZMPkUo8rKKuuhhoYvcLT2Jh758zgaCqynUMPDUmm0z+gXIspn qWuA7ncOrtD3NjZ1C8fmj6ZifuNh7CgJW8hV7x0WlTCCdzWFHe135fx6BV/feF16 q7yMUYzMJUSXAZn9TaJF =p5eN -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --llIrKcgUOe3dCx0c--
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