CVS removal from the base

[Adrian Chadd]

The problem I have with all of this is pretty simple.

With the CVS in base, it's treated like the (mostly) rest of the
system in a stable release - ie, people don't simply keep updating it
to the latest and greatest without some testing. If there are any
critical bugs or security flaws, they're backported. The port isn't
upgraded unless it has to be, and then if it's a major update, there
are plenty of eyeballs to review it. It's in /src, after all.

But with ports, the ports tree only has the "latest" version or two;
sometimes a few major versions to choose from (eg apache), but we
don't maintain the same kind of package versions that Linux operating
system packages do.

So it's entirely possible the "CVS" port maintainer updates the port
to the latest and greatest, which works for him - and it breaks
someone's older CVS repository somehow.

I'd be happier with the idea of things moving into ports if the ports
tree did have stable snapshots which had incremental patches for
bug/security fixes, rather than "upgrade to whatever the port
maintainer chooses."

I'm all for change, but it seems those pushing forward change seem to
be far exceeding the comfortable level of more conservative people; or
those with real needs. Those who have relied on FreeBSD's stable
release source tree being that - stable - whilst ports moves along
with the latest and greatest as needed. It doesn't matter that you may
do a fantastic job with a stable CVS  port - what matters is how
people perceive what you're doing. It just takes one perceived screwup
here for the view to shift that "freebsd is going the way of linux".
And then we lose a whole lot of what public "good" opinion FreeBSD
has. ;-)

2c,

Adrian