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To: Heikki Suonsivu <hsu@clinet.fi>
cc: ports@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: xemacs 19.13 diffs - will someone commit them under my name? 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 05 Dec 1995 08:15:56 +0200."
             <199512050615.IAA07046@katiska.clinet.fi> 
Date: Tue, 05 Dec 1995 02:29:12 -0800
Message-ID: <12424.818159352@time.cdrom.com>
From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
Sender: owner-ports@freebsd.org
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> I would propose that ports would not be committed at all before the patches
> have been sent to authors.  If it is optional, people are too lazy to do

Argh.  No!

We don't need big brother - big brother is frequently asleep or buried
in exams anyway.  We need better brother.  We need to extend the ports
mechanism so that *more state* is kept with each port.  We have a
MAINTAINER field, for example, but it only tracks *our* maintainer!
What if you want to get in touch with the original source?  The
computer is supposed to be our helper here, so make IT deal with
figuring out how to send patches back to maintainers!  I'm perfectly
serious.  I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to run a script over
the ports collection to bundle up mail messages (which I would of
course review before sending) to each of the *original* maintainers
consisting of a short explanatory message and a shar file of the
patches still required by FreeBSD.  Run the script every couple of
months and keep stats on whether or not the number of patch files in
the tree grows or shrinks so you'll know whether or not it's working.

The answer is not in more draconian policies, it's in working
*smarter*.

					Jordan