Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 04:19:44 +0200 From: Michal Varga <varga.michal@gmail.com> To: Doug Barton <dougb@FreeBSD.org> Cc: freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Ports system trolling Message-ID: <1314584384.82067.323.camel@xenon> In-Reply-To: <4E5AB672.4020607@FreeBSD.org> References: <4E5A48AC.6050201@eskk.nu> <20058.20743.791783.342355@jerusalem.litteratus.org> <BLU0-SMTP182102B9C96837517ECB6BB93150@phx.gbl> <20110828172651.GB277@magic.hamla.org> <20110828173059.GT17489@deviant.kiev.zoral.com.ua> <20110828181356.GD277@magic.hamla.org> <20110828183300.GX17489@deviant.kiev.zoral.com.ua> <20110828184542.GE277@magic.hamla.org> <20110828152234.54cc9fac@seibercom.net> <20110828193046.GA668@magic.hamla.org> <1314564889.82067.89.camel@xenon> <4E5AB672.4020607@FreeBSD.org>
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On Sun, 2011-08-28 at 14:43 -0700, Doug Barton wrote: > On 8/28/2011 1:54 PM, Michal Varga wrote: > > On Sun, 2011-08-28 at 15:30 -0400, Sahil Tandon wrote: > > > > [...] > >> Criminal? Indifference? This sort of troll-ish hyperbole is decidedly > >> unhelpful. > > FWIW, I agree with Sahil that this post of Jerry's was over the top, as > several of his have been of late. To use the word "criminal" in this > context is sufficient all on its own. To accuse people who spend an > enormous amount of their own free time trying to make this thing work of > being indifferent is just plain rude. While I'm the last one to be trying to belittle the effort put by some people into ports (or FreeBSD in general), lately, this particular mantra is starting to get a little overused. I know that it almost borders with criminal (I see what I did there) even trying to suggest that, but seriously - just because someone "did a lot" this or other day (week, month, or year) for FreeBSD, doesn't make them *untouchable* to critique for the rest of their lives. This is very wrong approach and such way of thinking only leads to a pretty rotten (and pretty elitist) community. Note that I mean it generally, without pointing to any current case at all. It's just... Recently it's being invoked so much that it's on the verge of losing any meaning. Jerry (ok, I'm probably starting to sound like his mother, writing third email about him and all that, but it'd be hard to get to some point without pointing to him directly) clearly stated what was his concern - that there should have been a note put in UPDATING the moment the issue was discovered (I would personally mention *testing* somewhere in there, but that's me), and that the chosen approach - "waiting for a maintainer approval to give his permission for a fix" when you already have there a situation with mailing list filling up with more and more reports about breaks (meaning, people out there actually get bitten by it right at this very moment, losing them time, losing them money, losing them hair, choose what applies) - is pathetic. Now. Would I personally chose the same words? Definitely not, it's far from being polite and I could easily imagine the shitstorm following it (now just see the shitstorm following me using the word shitstorm). But it's not about the one single word from the whole thread, we are not elementary school children. It's about the situation behind it, and that's the one that really needs addressing, not a bunch of heated words. In such situation, I (personally, again) wouldn't consider this even warranting a quiet off-list warning, it's not like this guy is cross spamming threads and randomly attacking people out there just for fun. Late edit: I was only speaking about the situation happening up until starting this particular reply, now I see things got a little bit more heated in meantime (most of which I didn't read, yet), but that's already out of scope of this. Just to make things clear. > > On some of my desktop setups, I keep about 900-1000 installed ports (and > > there are some ~200-300 for servers in general). There already seems not > > to be a single week, even once, without some MAJOR breakage that always > > takes hours (sometimes days) to track down and fix by my own ... > > FWIW, my experience has not been even close to yours, although I do find > broken things occasionally. Well, as far as I remember, you weren't using FreeBSD as a desktop OS (or at least weren't much), so this probably contributes to your (better) experience with recent ports. Of course it's just something out of the back of my head, I may be mistaken, but I think I remember you stating it some time, someplace. Anyway - with some 1000 ports on a full feature desktop system (that's like 1/20th of all we have in total, right), be it Gnome or KDE (god help with both), the breakages are massive, and almost constant. On the other hand, this practically doesn't happen on any major Linux distribution (and no, I'm not that guy arguing we should move ports to debian binary packages, there's no need to worry); this wasn't happening in 4.x days too, this wasn't happening in 5.x days and everyone knows what a.... loving miracle.... FreeBSD 5 was, this wasn't happening in (early) 6.x days (much), but especially from 7 onwards, and the last year, having a 1000-ports desktop system is just a plain nightmare. There is constantly *something* broken. And not like it's just one thing at a time. Do I have stats for it? No, obviously. If I was making paper notes of that, I'd have eradicated few rainforests by now (errr, so no, I don't have stats for it, but I have my daily experiences maintaining both server and desktop BSDs without a break since 2000, so that leaves some memory here and there). [Rest moved to a standalone email, as it's somewhat long and stuff.] m. -- Michal Varga, Stonehenge (Gmail account)
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