From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Mar 6 21:28:04 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EF62716A420 for ; Mon, 6 Mar 2006 21:28:04 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from eol1@yahoo.com) Received: from web51911.mail.yahoo.com (web51911.mail.yahoo.com [206.190.48.74]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 3DC5543D5A for ; Mon, 6 Mar 2006 21:27:59 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from eol1@yahoo.com) Received: (qmail 77834 invoked by uid 60001); 6 Mar 2006 21:27:58 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=Message-ID:Received:Date:From:Reply-To:Subject:To:Cc:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=fg0RyzPIetzW24cZeWaJT0LWR0sfQedSgR8sD0ntvlrMVvIKgkRTV+et4sGzBcj8laH75JCL1a87wta0WI8UyYD1ndHex1dqEHbYX2FXXREGYjVk7Wt3PPqoObg9FKqSHHTIbKpsqnkgoII+8Jb9dajNs1V6KaoghNERrKyQHOk= ; Message-ID: <20060306212758.77832.qmail@web51911.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [62.68.76.227] by web51911.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Mon, 06 Mar 2006 13:27:58 PST Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 13:27:58 -0800 (PST) From: Peter Thoenen To: Florent Thoumie , Mark Linimon In-Reply-To: <1141640501.18845.11.camel@mayday.esat.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Cc: Jean-Yves Lefort , Dmitry Marakasov , freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: opinions on porting software in alpha state? X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: eol1@yahoo.com List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 21:28:05 -0000 >> Users "expect" the ports to work -- that part I'm Just quick comment on this before I move on with my reply. Everything in the port tree *works* (or should), even if all the features aren't there and / or its buggy / alpha's software. I just don't see anybody submitting a port that compiles and does absolutely nothing other than compile. If they do, they should be shot ;) Now as for submitting alpha software, go for it. Software is always a moving target and almost never a complete set. Sure it might be labeled 1.0 stable but lets face it, 7 years down the road with Version 20.4 stable 1.0 will look like an alpha release. If it works, does what you want it to do, then go ahead and port it. Somebody somewhere may find it useful (an example of this is mixmaster which has been alpha for nearly 10 years but its in use). Now if you looking at porting alpha software when a stable version is currently available, I am against that. Either port the stable version or create port-devel version like so many other ports (tor / tor-devel for example). If the alpha version isn't that big of an improvement over the stable version, then just wait. -Peter