FreeBSD Port: php5-5.1.4

[Helmut Schneider]

From: "Jeremy Chadwick" <freebsd at jdc.parodius.com>

> On Thu, May 18, 2006 at 10:02:37AM +0200, Helmut Schneider wrote:
>> First of all I would like to thank you for your quick answer. I still do
>> not know which mailinglist exactly you refer to and I apologize that I
>> do  not know what the hell a "pr database" is at all. Looking at
>> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/lang/php5/ (which I
>> thought is  the *official* place-to-go) the port was *released* 10
>> days ago and I did  not bargain for that a broken port may resist
>> there for that time without a  single comment that it is broken.
>
> The bottom line is this: the port is broken because the PHP authors
> are a bunch of jhonkas.  So yes, you were right to mention here that
> the port appears broken.

Thanks for clarifiying that point.

> What you didn't check/know was that others (MANY others) had already
> chimed in with the same thing to freebsd-ports.  Sometimes it does
> help to check the mailing list archives.  I'm not flaming you,
> honestly -- it's just something to keep in mind for the future.  :-)

I will do so in future and I do not feel this discussion as a flame at all.

>> Forgive my ignorance but maybe it is worth commenting such problems
>> directly at a central location (see link above) instead of expecting
>> people  to search a hole bunch of mailling lists. Maybe some noobs
>> like me could be  helpful for the community at that point
>
> As mentioned, there's an open PR (Problem Report) on the php5 port:
>
> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=ports/97338
>
> Once committed to the ports tree, it should solve the problem.
>
> You can query the PR database using this web form:
>
> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi?query
>
> In the meantime/interim, I think someone (that means port committers
> at the top of the "managerial chain") should mark the port as BROKEN
> until ale@ gets to it (when/as he sees fit).  Normally I wouldn't
> recommend this, but the number of people relying on the php5 port
> is gargantuan, and safe to say we'll continue to see mails about it
> here until 97338 is committed.

In spite of that may I ask what exactly the problem is? For me (personally 
and looking at the PR) it seems that just 3 lines in the distinfo are wrong 
taking 30 seconds to fix.