New port with maintainer ports@FreeBSD.org [was: Question about maintainers]

[Mark Linimon]

On Fri, Jul 29, 2005 at 12:16:19AM +0200, Pav Lucistnik wrote:
> > Thanks, Scot.  That's helpful to know.  I wasn't aware, for example, that 
> > anyone could submit PRs for a broken port.
> 
> Please don't do that, unless you also submit a fix.
> 
> Because committers are few and usually are not very familiar with the
> given broken port. Such PRs tend to be left untouched for years and then
> swept under the carpet too often.

I'm going to disagree with Pav here.  If a port doesn't work, we ought to
know about it so we can at least e.g. mark it as IGNORE like:

IGNORE=	"installs but core dumps"

Then if someone wants to install it, at least they know that there's
rough water ahead, and, if they aren't technical, to just avoid the
port altogether.  This way we've at least told people what to expect,
upfront, to try to save them time.

To reiterate for people that don't know, we use BROKEN for ports that
fail the install/deinstall sequence or don't fetch or break INDEX builds.
These are the ports that are periodically removed*.  IGNORE is used for
all other kinds of failures.

Ports that meet this definition of BROKEN from day one, should never be
committed in the first place.  That's not just my opinion, I think I can
speak for portmgr on that one.  That's the least level of QA that I
believe is required.

mcl

* ok, FORBIDDEN ports are periodically removed as well.  Those are ports
with security problems.  And, for sake of completeness, ports with
licensing problems can be and are removed without prior notice if the
software authors so insist.  But to date we have not removed any port
just_ because it is unmaintained, nor do I think there would ever be
any support for such a thing.