[RFC/P] Port System Re-Engineering

[Paul Schmehl]

--On Monday, December 03, 2007 13:53:06 -0500 "Aryeh M. Friedman" 
<aryeh.friedman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Have you ever attempted to install the individual ports of a mega
> metaport?
>>
Of course I have.  And I haven't run into any problems that weren't 
solvable.

>> Before you waste any more time, why don't you get very specific
>> about what you think the "bad state" of the ports system is.  "I
>> don't like it" doesn't qualify nor does "ports freezes suck".
>
> I never asked or said any of those... the original thread was started
> when I asked how long the port freeze would last... others turned it
> into a referendum on the ports system... once the thread had been
> transformed I ventured some of my own ideas.
>>
The "bad state" quote is directly from you.  Since you made the statement, 
I  simply asked for some concrete examples of what you think "bad state" 
means.  You used the term.  Surely you have some idea what you meant by it?
>
> I have 4 ports awaiting inclusion in the ports tree after the freeze
> is over (I am willing to wait but I think the fact that there was a
> ports freeze in the first place points to some underlaying flaws which
> I cited in the original thread)
>>
What would those flaws be?  You have a system that is entirely volunteer. 
Expecting the same performance that you get from a paid system is 
unrealistic.  Sometimes maintainers are very busy and can't commit changes 
as rapidly as others would like.  The solution?  Submit your own patches to 
the port and they will most likely get approved.  Sometimes committers are 
very busy and can't get to your port right away.  The solution?  Ask a 
different committer to take a look.  Or become a committer yourself.

Short of hiring professionals to do this work on a fulltime basis, what 
would you propose that would improve the system?

According to your sig you're a developer, so I'm certain you understand 
what library incompatibilities are.  Given that, how would you propose to 
not freeze ports while the base system is being prepared for release?

-- 
Paul Schmehl (pauls at utdallas.edu)
Senior Information Security Analyst
The University of Texas at Dallas
http://www.utdallas.edu/ir/security/