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Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:35:43 -0800
From: Kris Kennaway <kris@FreeBSD.org>
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Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: ports missing their packages.
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freebsd@t41t.com wrote:
> andrew clarke <mail_ozzmosis.com> said (on 2008/10/29):
>> You need to understand that the FreeBSD project by its nature is
>> primarily source-code driven.  Making packages available (of any port)
>> is of very low priority in comparison to the rest of the system
>> (testing, documentation, etc).  Demanding that the FreeBSD volunteers
>> build a package just because you want to use it is a bit unfair,
>> particularly when you can make one yourself without much trouble.
> 
> I'm not sure I got all the emails in this thread... maybe some just
> haven't arrived yet.
> 
> Anyway... I, for one, depend on packages. It literally takes days to 
> build something like Firefox on my (admittedly old) computer. I'm 
> surprised that package creation is such a low priority. Are there so 
> few people running FreeBSD on old hardware?

Just so you're clear, the original poster was completely wrong on how 
packages are built by the FreeBSD project.  Others have already 
explained the process in this thread, but to repeat: the packages are 
built automatically and continuously by a dedicated set of machines, and 
they are uploaded to the FTP site frequently.

Kris