From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 7 04:55:47 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: 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 1F21016A4DE for ; Fri, 7 Jul 2006 04:55:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dougb@FreeBSD.org) Received: from mail2.fluidhosting.com (mx22.fluidhosting.com [204.14.89.5]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 92DDD43D45 for ; Fri, 7 Jul 2006 04:55:46 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from dougb@FreeBSD.org) Received: (qmail 27609 invoked by uid 399); 7 Jul 2006 04:55:46 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ?192.168.0.7?) (dougb@dougbarton.us@127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 7 Jul 2006 04:55:46 -0000 Message-ID: <44ADE953.2030100@FreeBSD.org> Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 21:55:47 -0700 From: Doug Barton Organization: http://www.FreeBSD.org/ User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 (Windows/20060516) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mark Linimon References: <200607061557.k66FvXD7008274@sorsby.org> <44AD355B.9030202@mac.com> <20060706215854.371e5c38@it.buh.tecnik93.com> <20060706213823.GA6941@soaustin.net> In-Reply-To: <20060706213823.GA6941@soaustin.net> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.94.0.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: ports@freeBSD.org Subject: Ports support for RELENG_4 (Was: Re: Question about ports builds) X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 04:55:47 -0000 Mark Linimon wrote: > The burden of trying to keep everything working on 4 i386 branches, 3 > amd64 branches, and 3 sparc64 branches is too high at this point, especially > with the degree of drift in such things as header files and base compiler > between -4 and -5. Of course, most of these things can be fixed given > sufficient maintainer and committer interest, but at some point you have > to conclude that you're in the realm of diminishing returns. I think you're right about that, and my preferred method of operation for the ports that I maintain has been to try and test on RELENG_4 whenever possible, but not let not testing stop me from updating a port that works on 7-current and 6-stable. What I've found is that in those rare cases where there is an intersection between a port that is broken on RELENG_4 and users that care about that, I'm notified fairly promptly. If not by users, I usually get a krismail to the same effect. :) Thus, things in my little world don't stay broken for too long. All that said, I'd love to officially drop support for RELENG_4, but I think that until we drop support for RELENG_4 in the base, dropping support for the ports would break faith with our users. At the same time, I think that some bit rot at the edges (of the seldom-used ports) is natural, and not to be mourned. > there are 206 legitimate build errors on i386-4 now; that doesn't include > any port already marked as BROKEN. That's quite high. The way you break those numbers down is interesting. On i386 there are 206 errors on -4, 277 on -5, 119 on -6, and 151 on -7. I would be interested to know what the percentage of overlap is ... in other words what percentage of the 119 ports broken on -6 also comprise the broken ports on the other releases. Based on a cursory examination of the errors on -4, I'd estimate that percentage to be quite high. Assuming that it's 90%, that means that 99 ports are uniquely broken on -4, which is a very small percentage of the packages that actually built (0.097%). IOW, there is actually less bit rot (in terms of unintended brokenness) than I would have expected. Doug -- This .signature sanitized for your protection