Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 20:44:04 -0400 (EDT) From: "Adam C. Migus" <adam@migus.org> To: "Mark Linimon" <linimon@lonesome.com> Cc: Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org> Subject: Re: config files in packages (Re: (proposal) new flag forpkg_delete) Message-ID: <49707.192.168.4.2.1062809044.squirrel@mail.migus.org> In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0309051813350.3227-100000@pancho> References: <49222.192.168.4.2.1062744486.squirrel@mail.migus.org> <Pine.LNX.4.44.0309051813350.3227-100000@pancho>
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Mark Linimon said: >> This approach works great assuming every port is well written, but >> every port isn't well written. > > Granted. > >> Considering absence of this behavior a bug is fine if you want a >> million PR's, a lot of discouraged port maintainers > > While the PR system is imperfect, it's the best mechanism for > getting bugs fixed that we have. Also, recently the pace of > ports PR commits has picked up; if you look at the PR statistics > page you'll see this confirmed. > > Plus, I don't understand why the above will discourage port > maintainers.forever > The PR system is great. I didn't mean to imply it wasn't. I meant to say that flooding it with bug reports saying "this port deals with configuration files improperly," leaving a lot of port maintainers with the responsibility of adopting a defacto-standard way of dealing with the issue, is not the best way to attack the problem. A port maintainer could find it discouraging if that maintainer didn't know it was a bug in the first place and now has to deal with the fact that a) it is, and b) how they should fix it given there's no "official" solution. > A final note: postings like this don't really create progress. > Prototyped code submitted via a PR creates progress, or bugfixes > submitted via a PR create progress, or even bug reports submitted > via a PR create progress. Even if you write this up as a "desired > feature" and submit that as a PR, that would help move things > forward. > But just saying "it's broke" without any further action really > _does_ frustrate folks doing the work. > > mcl > > > Postings like this could create progress if they were read the right way. My apologies for the your misinterpretation. All I gave you was an opinion. I didn't give you a desired feature. The last time I checked there wasn't an "opinion" mechanism for a PR and if there was, I'd put much more thought into write one, than I did this post. I sit here, at night, reading the mailing lists and if I have an opinion, I share it. That's all I did. I do understand your point and please don't take this post negatively. I'm just trying to say that while I have an opinion on this subject I haven't a clear cut idea on how to best solve it, at this time. If, in future, I do formulate something worthy of a PR, I'll generate one and thank-you for pointing this out. As for my opinion. In summary I think: 1. The PR system is great. 2. Asking port maintainers to solve this problem at all is not the best approach. Doing it with the -dist file method is also not the best solution since it can break if the user deletes the -dist files and you can bank on the fact that many will. Also it will take a long time or forver (which ever comes first) to clean them all up irrespective of how effective the PR system is in reporting the problem. 3. I think that making the ports system itself deal with the issue by making it deal with configuration files as a special case has numerous advantages, solves this problem, makes it easier to solve others, makes it easier to create and maintain ports and won't create a pile of PR's flooding the PR system. -- Adam - (http://people.migus.org/~amigus/) Migus Dot Org - (http://www.migus.org/)
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