Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2007 13:58:18 -0700 From: Garrett Cooper <youshi10@u.washington.edu> To: FreeBSD Ports Tree Management <portmanager@FreeBSD.org> Cc: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD and NetBSD's pkgsrc: A strategic synergy for awesomeness Message-ID: <46101CEA.30402@u.washington.edu> In-Reply-To: <1175455563.1871.33.camel@localhost> References: <1175455563.1871.33.camel@localhost>
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FreeBSD Ports Tree Management wrote: > Dear FreeBSD ports community, > > It has been a good quarter for the ports collection and now is as good a > time as ever to reflect back on the ports tree as well as plot it's > future. We have broken 16796 ports. Tomorrow we will fix most of them. > The past quarter the ports tree has managed to remain open the > majority of the time. If you count the fact that so many committers > forgot about the last slush after a while then we were actually open for > the entire quarter. We feel all our committers and maintainers deserve > thanks for their tireless work. > > However, issues of course still remain. The largest of which being the > number of PRs for the ports tree. Over the past year ports tree related > issues have made up roughly 80% of our incoming PRs. At present ports > related PRs represent naerly 15% of our open PR backlog. core@ has > expressed their disapproval over our division's numbers. They feel the > ports tree currently requires too many project resources to maintain > which distracts us from work in other necessary areas within the > organization. While the ports tree has been an important symbol of us > to our customers with a long and innovative history, it has ultimately > become a resource intensive and losing division which requires us to > take steps that will allow the other areas of the project to better > thrive. > > We in the ports tree management have received recent approval from core@ for > our resource redirection plan. FreeBSD needs to remain competitive in > the free OS market so we feel the need to take suitable steps towards > this end. Following in the path of our competitor DragonflyBSD we > are pleased to announce a new strategic partnership with NetBSD and it's > pkgsrc division. We are hereby announcing our intentions to switch over > to NetBSD's pkgsrc tree and close our own FreeBSD ports tree. While > some of you may be quick to call this outsourcing there can be nothing > further from the truth. NetBSD has been one of our technology partners > for many years as both organizations have routinely shared development > for our mutual benefit and growth. We prefer to call this move > "partner-sourcing". We feel this new partnership between FreeBSD and > NetBSD will invariably produce a synergy of efficient utilization of > FreeBSD resources for improved operating system development and > continued organization growth while still maintaining a robust package > management system. It's very simple, FreeBSD will see an 80% reduction > in incoming PRs while being able to summarily close nearly 15% of its > backlog in one shot. What were once our problems will now be someone > else's problems. > > Partner-sourcing the ports tree is a large project and will take some > time to complete. First, to our loyal customers. You will see no > noticeable change in our product. We are still committed to providing > high quality third party applications to meet your computing needs. You > should feel no apprehension in the continued use of FreeBSD within your > own organization. In fact, we feel this move will lead to a FreeBSD 7 > which will finally be the improvement over FreeBSD 4 that you have been > looking for. > > For our employee committers and contractor port maintainers we regret to > inform you that due to redundancies many of you will be let go from > FreeBSD. All port maintainer's contracts are immediately terminated. > If you refer to the organization's Porters Handbook you will note that > we have the right to terminate maintainer contracts at will. For our > employee committers we will be restructuring in phases. Those of you > with work obligations in the other repositories will retain your ports > tree responsibilities while training the pkgsrc workforce for their new > role maintaining their products on FreeBSD. Once this phase is complete > your workload will be redirected towards your roles in the other > repositories. Those of you with a ports commit bit only, we wish to put > this gently. We are delivering a .pinkslip to your cubicles in the > Freefall office currently. By the end of business tomorrow we expect > you to login and collect your belongings there and in our satellite > offices. All cubicles will be scheduled for deletion after that. > Please be aware that members of the FreeBSD Security Team will be > monitoring your access to ensure that no organization property > accidentally goes home with you. > > We realize that FreeBSD's actions represent a noticeable disruption in > the lives of our now former employees and contractors and we wish to > help them by disclosing some exciting news. Due to certain recent > events our strategic partner NetBSD is going through an unprecedented > level of growth and expansion in their pkgsrc division. To keep up with > demand they will be going through an extended hiring phase for new > committers and maintainers. We feel that many of you would be quality > candidates for their organization and suggest that as you leave FreeBSD > for a different career path that you stop and take a look at them so you > may remain close to the FreeBSD family. > > > With gratitude and looking towards a new future, > > Portmanager > Wow. I suppose I should try NetBSD now to figure out what it's all about. Can someone either provide a link or a quick synopsis, of what the differences are between the current ports tree and NetBSD's pkgsrc tree? Thanks, -Garrett
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