From owner-freebsd-questions  Sun Dec  6 12:10:24 1998
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Date: Sun, 06 Dec 1998 14:10:18 -0600
From: "Ryan Thompson [LAM]" <listaccount@home.com>
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To: Patrick Seal <patseal@hyperhost.net>
CC: FBSDQ <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject: Re: Broken Ports
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Patrick Seal wrote:
> 
> Maybe I missed something, but what's the point to have a broken port?  Why
> is a port 'broken'?  I'm trying to install p5-Gtk-0.4 but it says it
> "marked as broken: build."
> 
> I searched though www.freebsd.org but couldn't find any mention of broken
> ports.
> 
> thanks,
> 
> Patrick Seal
> patseal@hyperhost.net
> 
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
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Hi Patrick.  Broken ports mean that whoever is responsible for
maintaining the ported source ran into some sort of snag or noticed an
old snag, OR, due to changes in a new version of the operating system,
their working port no longer works.

They are still available for download because there are many capable
people out there that have the ability to fix broken ports, given a
little time and programming expertise.  When someone successfully fixes
a broken port, they are often kind enough to submit it for re-inclusion
in the working ports list.

For the average user with little or no knowledge of UNIX internals,
though, trying to build and run a broken port is usually just asking for
trouble :)

- Ryan Thompson

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