Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 19:22:49 +0200 From: Roman Neuhauser <neuhauser@sigpipe.cz> To: Mark Linimon <linimon@lonesome.com> Cc: ports@freebsd.org, Paul Schmehl <pauls@utdallas.edu>, Simon Barner <barner@FreeBSD.org>, Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org> Subject: Re: New port with maintainer ports@FreeBSD.org [was: Question about maintainers] Message-ID: <20050728172249.GD66015@isis.sigpipe.cz> In-Reply-To: <20050728170401.GA9534@soaustin.net> References: <C3B81AFDB8A5DFB5AB566CC4@utd59514.utdallas.edu> <42E81050.7090305@cs.tu-berlin.de> <66A226C3557B48ED535E3FED@utd59514.utdallas.edu> <20050727230523.GB54954@isis.sigpipe.cz> <20050728154248.GA943@zi025.glhnet.mhn.de> <20050728164111.GA66015@isis.sigpipe.cz> <20050728170401.GA9534@soaustin.net>
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# linimon@lonesome.com / 2005-07-28 12:04:01 -0500:
> On Thu, Jul 28, 2005 at 06:41:11PM +0200, Roman Neuhauser wrote:
> > The policy makers won, everybody else lost.
>
> You're entitled to your opinion, but from the other side of the table
> it looks like this:
>
> What Kris and I see are hundreds of ports that are committed and then
> either a) are never updated, b) wind up not compiling when the base
> system is updated, c) wind up with PRs filed against them by users, for
> other problems ("doesn't work with XYZ"), that no one will ever deal with.
>
> In every case the users who install those ports aren't getting what they
> expect.
>
> How does this situation serve the users?
I am a member of the mythical "users" group, and I don't mind fixing
whatever breakage I stumble upon as I go.
> Let me mention today's statistics:
>
> Total number of ports: 13281
> Number of ports with no maintainer: 3670 (27.6%)
>
> I just can't see how this is a good situation.
Would it be better if there were 9611 ports instead? How about
"maintained" ports where the maintainers don't take proper care of
their ports?
I just don't see how no "designated maintainer" makes a port worse
than port "maintained" by someone who refutes quite a bit of PRs
with "I don't know, I only use minor part of the software, and
that's all I can keep running".
> I no longer have the statistics online but from the last time I went
> through this it is about twice more likely that an unmaintained port:
>
> - has PRs against it
> - is broken
> - is out-of-date
>
> as versus the average maintained port. (Of course, some maintainers
> are far more active than others.)
>
> And yes, it's true that he and I do the majority of the cleanup work to
> flag and (if necessary) remove broken ports and so tend to be sensitive
> to the issue. But the idea that we have is that it's better to have a
> working port than a useless port.
FMPOV the situation is "mostly working" vs none.
> People need to decide what their vision of the Ports Collection is.
> Some folks seem to want every possible port included, whether or not
> it is up to date and working. I have, in particular, been trying to
> push us towards the direction of only having ports that we are going
> to use and maintain in it, on the theory that anything else is at some
> point going to waste some user's time somewhere down the road.
Again, I'm a user, and I rather spend 2 hours fixing a particular
bug in an imperfect port than 8 hours creating it from scratch
(and god knows how much time from then if I'm forced to maintain
it).
I've sent quite a few patches to various ports since I've started
using FreeBSD, and my experience is that maintained ports
(especially those "maintained" by certain @freebsd.org addresses)
are more likely to have PRs hanging for a long time. The situation
is a bit <irony>better</irony> with ports maintained by people
without a @freebsd.org address, because committers usually don't
bother waiting for approval.
--
How many Vietnam vets does it take to screw in a light bulb?
You don't know, man. You don't KNOW.
Cause you weren't THERE. http://bash.org/?255991
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